Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

NEW WRITS.

For County of Ayr and Bute (Kilmarnock Division), in the room of Robert Climie, esquire, deceased.—[Mr. Kennedy.]

For County of Warwick (Tamworth Division), in the room of Sir Edward Mauger Iliffe, C.B.E. (Manor of North-stead).—[Sir Bolton Eyres Monsell.]

Oral Answers to Questions — DUTCH EAST INDIES (BRITISH SUBJECTS).

Mr. HOLLINS: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that two British subjects were stabbed fatally by coolies in Java, Dutch East Indies, on the Doerdjo estate, Djember, in July and early August last; and whether he will bring the matter to the notice of the proper authorities with a view to more adequate protection being given to British subjects?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Arthur Henderson): Yes, Sir, the matter has been brought to the personal attention of Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands by the local planters themselves, and the authorities of the Netherlands East Indies are at present conducting an investigation into the nature and causes of the recent attacks on Europeans by natives.

Oral Answers to Questions — LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

OPTIONAL CLAUSE.

Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSON: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when the White Paper will be published dealing with the re-
servation to the Optional Clause of matters within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United Kingdom?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: As I informed the right hon. Gentleman on the 11th November, the question is under consideration. He may rest assured that if it is decided to publish a White Paper, it will be done before the Debate takes place.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Did I not understand from what the right hon. Gentleman said the other day that he was going to publish a White Paper?

Mr. HENDERSON: No, I thought I informed the House that the matter was under consideration.

Sir AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman give his favourable consideration to the request? It will greatly facilitate our consideration of the subject, and I think perhaps save time in debate, if we can have this information in good time before the Debate.

Mr. HENDERSON: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that it is having my most sympathetic consideration, and the document is actually in course of preparation, but I must see it first.

Mr. THURTLE: When is it likely that this will be submitted to Parliament for ratification?

Mr. HENDERSON: That is a question which must be put to the Leader of the House.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will include in the White Paper, dealing with the signing of the Optional Clause, the opinion of the legal advisers to the Foreign Office as to the interpretation to be placed upon the reservation to the signature of matters within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United Kingdom?

Mr. HENDERSON: The publication of a White Paper is still the subject of consideration, and therefore I cannot give any undertaking as to what such a Paper will contain, but in any case I am not prepared to undertake to publish the opinions of my advisers, which I should regard as a most improper proceeding.

POLAND (GERMAN MINORITY).

Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: 14.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether petitions presented by the German minority in Poland to the League of Nations in 1926, 1927, and again on the 10th August, 1929, have been considered by the council; and whether any action has been taken, or is contemplated, to safeguard the Treaty rights of this minority?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: Numerous petitions have been received from this minority and have been dealt with by the Council of the League of Nations; but I am unable to trace a petition of the 10th of August last, or to answer the question without specific information as to the particular petitions which the hon. and gallant Member has in mind.

IRAQ (TREATY).

Captain EDEN: 44.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any new Treaty will be negotiated with the Government of Iraq before the admission of Iraq to the League of Nations?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Lunn): The intention of His Majesty's Government is to negotiate a new Treaty, which will enter into force when Iraq has been admitted to the League of Nations.

BRITISH EMBASSIES (FLAGS).

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the British flag is only flown over the British Embassy in Paris and other Embassies on a comparatively small number of fixed occasions; and whether he will give directions for the British flag to be flown daily on British Embassies abroad, as this would be both a convenience and a satisfaction to British nationals either residing in or visiting foreign capitals?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: The daily flying of flags at His Majesty's Embassies and Legations abroad throughout the year is open to the objections that it would be contrary to international custom and would leave no means of marking the British or foreign anniversaries on which the flag is at present flown.

Sir W. DAVISON: Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that it would be convenient to British subjects who are visiting foreign capitals to know where the British Embassy is, and that there is difficulty in finding it if the British flag is not flown? Is there any reason why it should not be flown?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is it not a fact that the Royal Arms are always shown on diplomatic buildings and Consulates?

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIA.

PROPAGANDA.

Major the Marquess of TITCHFIELD: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will inquire of the Russian Government whether they intend to dissociate themselves from the subversive propaganda of the Comintern against this country?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: No, Sir. The attitude of His Majesty's Government as regards the question of foreign subversive propaganda in this country, by whomsoever conducted, has been made clear, and I do not consider that any further action in the matter, of the kind suggested in the question, is at present either requisite or desirable.

Marquess of TITCHFIELD: Did the right hon. Gentleman see the statement made by the Comintern last Saturday that they would go on propaganding against this country?

Mr. HENDERSON: Yes, I admitted on Monday that I had seen it.

Marquess of TITCHFIELD: Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries into this matter? It is very important. Does he not realise that this statement proves that the promises made by the Russian Government are not worth the paper on which they are written?

HON. MEMBERS: Answer!

Marquess of TITCHFIELD: Mr. Speaker, may I have an answer to my question? This is a very important matter.

Mr. SPEAKER: It may be very important, but you cannot get blood out of a stone.

DEBT SETTLEMENT.

Sir NICHOLAS GRATTANDOYLE: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is proposed to submit to Parliament for approval the terms of any settlement arrived at with the Soviet Government on the question of debts?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: The terms of any debt settlement concluded by His Majesty's Government with the Soviet Government will be submitted to Parliament for approval.

TREATY OF TRIANON.

Mr. MANDER: 15.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Government is in favour of a revision of the Treaty of Trianon?

Mr. A. HENDERSON: The question of the revision of the Treaty of Trianon has never come under the consideration of His Majesty's Government.

Mr. BEAUMONT: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider whether anything can be done to remove this very grave potential source of trouble in Europe?

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP "DESPATCH" (UNITED STATES VISIT).

Commander SOUTHBY: 16.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what was the reason for the alteration in the programme of His Majesty's Ship "Despatch," the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief, North America and West Indies Station, whereby the contemplated visit to a United States port was recently cancelled?

The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. A. V. Alexander): The original date of the visit of His Majesty's Ship "Despatch" to United States ports would have clashed with the visit of the Prime Minister, and it was regarded as inexpedient that the United States authorities should be asked to consider arrangements for both visits to take place at the same time. No other date for the visit of His Majesty's Ship "Despatch" could be conveniently arranged.

SINGAPORE BASE.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: 17.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the Government proposes to continue the construction of the new naval base an Singapore?

Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: 27.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what work is proceeding in connection with the Singapore base; and whether any instructions have been issued to decelerate the work pending the Five-Power Conference in January?

Mr. ALEXANDER: His Majesty's Government gave attention to this matter as soon as it came into office. In 1924 the previous Labour administration decided not to proceed with the proposed naval base at Singapore. Since that date, however, the action of the late Government had altered the situation very materially. A floating dock had been provided at heavy expense, and in September, 1928, a contract was signed for the building of a large graving dock at a cost of approximately £4,000,000. Moreover, the bulk of the expenditure up to the present time had, we found, been met by contributions from Hong Kong, the Federated Malay States, and New Zealand, their total contributions to the end of the present financial year being £2,113,000, together with the free gift of the site by the Straits Settlements. The House is aware that a Naval Conference has now been arranged, the decisions of which may affect the question of the use of this base, and in all the circumstances the Government has decided that the work already contracted for at Singapore shall be slowed down as much as possible, that all work that can be suspended shall be suspended, and that no new work shall be embarked on pending the results of the work of the Five-Power Conference.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: May I ask whether we are to understand that in the contracts entered into by his predecessor for this construction there was no break Clause to allow for such an eventuality as has arisen or may arise?

Mr. ALEXANDER: I would rather have notice of that question; but I may say that considerations of compensation might arise.

Sir GEORGE PENNY: Have the Dominions been consulted on this action which the Government have taken?

Mr. ALEXANDER: Yes, the Dominions have been notified.

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: Have any further steps been taken or contracts let involving the fortification of this site?

Mr. ALEXANDER: No, Sir.

Captain EDEN: May I ask what view the Dominions have expressed on this slowing down of work for which they have paid?

Mr. ALEXANDER: The notifications to the Dominions were not of recent date. They have been made on more than one occasion, and we have no reason to suppose that the nature of the answer given this afternoon is out of harmony with their immediate view, but I should like to let that wait for a little time longer before I give a definite answer.

Mr. THURTLE: Does not the right hon. Gentleman deprecate this constant attempt to create differences between the Dominions and ourselves?

Mr. ALBERY: In view of the statement which the right hon. Gentleman has just made, will not the question arise of whether the contributions received from the other parts of the British Dominions are not being spent under false pretences?

Commander SOUTHBY: Are we to understand that the orders for slowing down construction at Singapore have been given before a reply has been received from the Dominions after notification was sent to them?

Marquess of TITCHFIELD: Is not this policy penny wise and pound foolish?

Mr. KELLY: 20.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty from where the labour is recruited for the construction of the Singapore dock; and what, if any, agencies are engaged in recruiting such labour?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Ammon): The labour is recruited locally, and no agencies are employed.

PROMOTIONS.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 19.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the total number of promotions from warrant officers, petty officers, and seamen to the rank of mate, apart from mates (E), from 1913, when the rank was revived, until the end of the War period; how many mates were killed in the War; and how many of the gentlemen surviving are still on the active list with the rank of commander or higher rank?

Mr. ALEXANDER: 371 promotions to the rank of mate, excluding promotions to mate (E), were made from 1913 to the 11th November, 1918. Of this number, 16 were killed during the War and three are still on the active list with the rank of commander.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will my right hon. Friend look into the question of mates, in view of the slowness of promotion?

Mr. ALEXANDER: As I said last week, the number promoted to higher rank than lieutenant-commander is necessarily small at present. I may add that, in addition to the three commanders I have mentioned, there are three lieutenant-commanders with four and a-half to six years' seniority in the upper half of the promotion zone, 20 with two and a-half to four and a-half years' seniority in the lower half of the promotion zone, and 31 with less than two and a-half years' seniority who are below the promotion zone.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Does my right hon. Friend realise that those who went through the War, particularly, have not received any very large proportion of the promotions, and will he look into the matter?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a very strong feeling that facilities for promotion from the lower deck are not adequate, and will be appoint a Committee to look into this question in order to remove the grievance?

Mr. ALEXANDER: There has already been a Committee which dealt with that matter some time ago. I can make no further statement at the present time.

Mr. T. LEWIS: Will my right hon. Friend consider the desirability of having representatives of the ranks in question on the Promotion Board, as I suggested on the previous occasion? I do not know whether he has considered my suggestion since?

Mr. ALEXANDER: I think I told my hon. Friend on the last occasion that the whole question was being considered.

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is it the right hon. Gentleman's policy to slow down promotion as well as construction?

ADMIRALTY EMPLOYéS (HONG KONG AND SINGAPORE).

Mr. KELLY: 21.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of men in the employ of the Admiralty at Hong Kong and Singapore in May and September, 1929; and how many of these men were sent from the home yards under agreement?

Mr. AMMON: In May last the numbers of workpeople were 3,565, including 119 under agreement, at Hong Kong, and 865, including 46 under agreement, at Singapore. In September, the numbers were 3,553, including 119 under agreement, at Hong Kong, and 874, including 39 under agreement, at Singapore.

Mr. KELLY: Can my hon. Friend tell me for what number of years these agreements are?

Mr. AMMON: I am afraid I should have to ask for notice of that question.

ROYAL DOCKYARDS (EMPLOYMENT).

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 22.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the nature of the work hitherto done by contract which is now being done in the Royal Dockyards; whether this refers solely to orders given during the lifetime of the present Government; what is the cost of the work involved; and in which of His Majesty's dockyards this work is being carried out?

Mr. ALEXANDER: The following work formerly carried out by contract is now being done by the Royal dockyards:—

Building caisson, pulling and sailing boats, balsa rafts and lifefloats.
Making gunnery and torpedo fittings and stores and various small metal articles for store.

This system was introduced during the lifetime of the late Government, and the policy is now being continued on similar lines and developed as far as is practicable.
The approximate total annual cost of this work is £63,000 (labour £38,000, material £25,000).
The work is being carried out at each of the home dockyards (Chatham, Devon-port, Portsmouth and Sheerness).

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is the right hon. Gentleman of opinion that this work might be usefully extended, and will he use every endeavour to extend it?

Mr. ALEXANDER: We are giving every possible attention to the development of such work, but I would remind the hon. Member that it is a question of practicability.

Rear-Admiral BEAMISH: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us any idea of the comparative cost of articles made in the dockyards by the present system and of the normal practice?

Mr. ALEXANDER: I should like notice of that question, but I have no reason to believe that dockyard production is uneconomical.

Mr. ALLEN: 26.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in providing alternative employment for workers who may be displaced by the anticipated reduction in naval armaments, he will adopt the principle that any alternative work undertaken by Admiralty dockyards shall not be of such a character as to cause unemployment among workmen in the private dockyards in Northern Ireland, Clydeside and other parts of the United Kingdom?

Mr. ALEXANDER: I cannot give any undertaking of this character in advance. The Government will, of course, take into account all relevant considerations.

Sir BERTRAM FALLE: 29.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the increase in the number of men employed under all Votes in the Royal dockyard, Portsmouth, between 1st July of this year and 21st October; and if any increase on the money voted by the last Parliament for Royal dockyards is contemplated?

Mr. ALEXANDER: As regards the first part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to him on the 29th October (OFFICIAL REPORT, column 10); the answer to the second part is in the negative.

Sir B. FALLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the answer then given clashed with what was said by his colleague; and may I at the same time say that this question is put down in no hostile spirit, but in order to get the facts?

Mr. ALEXANDER: The answer I have just given in no way clashes with the previous answer given in the House.

Sir B. FALLE: The answer given by the right hon. Gentleman's colleague was that there was double the number of men working in the dockyards now that there was two months ago. As I have said, I ask this question with no hostile feeling, but just to clarify the matter.

Mr. ALEXANDER: If the House understood that, they were under a misapprehension. What my hon. Friend really intended to say was that the number of entries into the dockyards had been rather more than double the number of discharges.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: On a point of Order. In view of the answer just given by the right hon. Gentleman, I wish to call your attention to a fact which I should not otherwise have mentioned, namely, that the answer given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty has been altered in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. SPEAKER: This is the first time that this particular case has been brought to my notice. Ministers and hon. Members are entitled to correct within narrow limits their speeches and answers to questions; they always have been.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I beg to give notice that I shall call attention to this as a matter affecting the privileges of the House.

Mr. AMMON: Perhaps, with the permission of the House, I may settle the matter out of hand. The House will remember that there was considerable confusion when the question arose and that the hon. Member and myself were evidently talking about two entirely different things. Old Members of the
House are quite familiar with receiving slips if the Gallery does not hear quite clearly what has happened. I entered on that what I ought to have said, and that seems to have thrown the whole matter out. I am glad to have this opportunity of doing justice to the hon. Member and at the same time making the position quite clear with regard to the dockyards and myself.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: In view of the fact that I mentioned this subject to you, Sir, will you allow me to say that, of course, I entirely accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but the alteration made my supplementary question look ridiculous.

Sir B. FALLE: Will there be any saving in the Vote?

Mr. ALEXANDER: It is much too early for me to say that at the moment. At present, I am not contemplating asking for more money nor can I say if all the money already voted will be used.

HOLTON HEATH FACTORY.

Mr. KELLY: 23.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of civilian employés now engaged at the Holton Heath factory, with the number of youths?

Mr. AMMON: The number is 1,266, including 18 youths.

Mr. KELLY: Are these youths engaged on explosives work?

Mr. AMMON: There are seven who are engaged in handling explosives.

Mr. KELLY: Can my hon. Friend say what the ages of these young people are, and if they are on piece-work?

Mr. AMMON: As to the first part of my hon. Friend's question, they are under 20. As to the last part, I cannot say.

YACHTS.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 24.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if any vessels fitted as yachts or used as yachts, other than His Majesty's Royal' yachts, are still maintained for the use of Commanders-in-Chief or other officers; and, if so, what are their names?

Mr. ALEXANDER: No vessels fitted as yachts are provided for Commanders-in-Chief or other officers. The "Bryony" in the Mediterranean and the "Peters-field" on the China station are used as required for the conveyance of the Commander-in-Chief when the use of larger vessels would be uneconomical. These vessels, however, are essential units of their respective fleets, and also perform ordinary fleet services.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will my right hon. Friend look into the question of reducing these vessels used as yachts?

SUBMARINES (ESCAPE APPARATUS AND SALVAGE).

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 25.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is in a position to announce any improvement in the methods of rescuing the crews of, and salving, submarines sunk as the result of accident?

Mr. ALEXANDER: I am glad to be able to inform my hon. and gallant Friend that very satisfactory trials have just been completed of an apparatus which should afford each individual member of a crew a fair chance of escape from a sunken submarine and of reaching the surface. The apparatus is known as the Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus, designed by Messrs. Siebel, Gorman, Limited, and is similar in principle to the American "Lung." Arrangements are being made to purchase sufficient sets to equip all officers and men in submarines and to provide facilities for training them in its use. With the advent of this apparatus, the salvage of the submarine has become of lesser importance, as it may be no longer necessary for the saving of life. The problem is, however, being still further studied, and experiments have been carried out with a submarine at Portsmouth and will continue as necessary.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is the inventor of this apparatus English?

Mr. ALEXANDER: I do not happen to have made inquiry on that point; I was much more concerned about getting the apparatus.

CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS (COLONIES).

Mr. DAY: 30.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any statistics that will show the number of British talking films that have been banned by any of the Colonial Governments; and will he give particulars?

Mr. LUNN: No, Sir, I am not aware that any British talking film has been banned by any Colonial Government.

Mr. DAY: Has the hon. Gentleman's attention been called to a new British film which was banned in Australia and has been published here in the last two months?

Mr. LUNN: I am only replying for Colonial Governments and not for Dominion Governments.

EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD.

Mr. DAY: 37.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the price fixed in the contract which was given to the film company which produced the cinematograph film on behalf of the Empire Marketing Board was the result of competitive offers or tenders for this production?

Mr. LUNN: The project of the film was experimental and its execution was largely dependent upon factors which could not be forecasted or controlled. It was therefore felt impossible to adopt the methods ordinarily followed by Government Departments in the placing of contracts. Its execution was entrusted to a selected British firm, and competitive tenders were not invited.

Captain CROOKSHANK: Will the hon. Gentleman take note of the remarks of the Public Accounts Committee, recently published, on the subject?

Mr. MANDER: 73.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he will consider requesting the Empire Marketing Board to concentrate their work on research and marketing and to abandon their Press and poster publicity campaigns?

Mr. LUNN: These campaigns play a part in the achievement of the purpose for which the Empire Marketing Fund was granted, namely the furtherance of the marketing in this country of Empire products, including in the first place home agricultural produce. In these circumstances, I am not prepared to invite the Board to discontinue their activities in this field.

Mr. MANDER: Is it not the usual custom for producers to bear the cost of advertising the goods they manufacture, and not for the consumer?

Mr. ERNEST BROWN: Can the hon. Member inform me what is the value of a poster which has in conjunction a pineapple and a tiger, provoking the question: do tigers eat pineapples?

Oral Answers to Questions — PALESTINE.

MILITARY GARRISON AND POLICE.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 31.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any disciplinary action has been taken in connection with the refusal of the Palestine Police to obey orders or act during the riots; whether the policemen who failed are restored to their places and rank in the force; and what is being done to replace them if they are felt to be unreliable?

Mr. LUNN: I have received no report from the High Commissioner indicating that there was any refusal by members of the Palestine Police Force to obey orders or to take necessary action during the disturbances. My right hon. and gallant Friend is, no doubt, aware that the force has recently been strengthened by the recruitment of some two hundred additional British constables.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Will the hon. Gentleman make inquiries from the Palestine Government and let me know what the facts are?

Mr. LUNN: I will endeavour to get the information.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. LAMBERT WARD: 63.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the present strength of the military garrison in Palestine; how many additional British police have been recruited for Palestine since
the outbreak of the Wailing Wall disturbances; and for what period of service these police have been engaged?

Mr. LUNN: The military garrison of Palestine and Trans-Jordan at present consists of two-and-a-third squadrons Royal Air Force, five sections armoured cars, two infantry battalions, and the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force (four companies). Two hundred additional British police have been engaged for a period of one year in the first instance.

Sir A. LAMBERT WARD: Can the hon. Gentleman inform the House what the additional cost of these additions will be, and whether the cost will be borne by the British Treasury?

Mr. LUNN: I think I answered a similar question a week ago.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: 68.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies when the colony defence scheme in Palestine was abandoned; why this step was taken; and what alternative means of protection was provided for the Jews?

Mr. LUNN: The withdrawal of the special armouries formerly maintained in Jewish Colonies for purposes of defence was carried out gradually over a period of some five years prior to the late disturbances. The armouries were withdrawn as communications improved and the mobility of the regular security forces of the country increased. At the time of the outbreak some 16 or 17 colonies still retained rifles. The question of the protection of the Colonies is being reviewed by the High Commissioner in the light of recent events.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is it not a fact that whenever the Jews have rifles the Arabs have kept well clear of them?

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Was it not the case that formerly there was never any need for the defence of the Jews before the Balfour Declaration?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 42.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies how many police had to be temporarily disarmed in Palestine in the rioting?

Mr. LUNN: The only case reported by the High Commissioner in which police were deprived of firearms during the recent disorders in Palestine was that of
about 20 special constables of Jewish race, who were disarmed at Jerusalem on 27th August.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that many Arab police were disarmed in the early part of the raids owing to the fear that they might use their arms in the wrong direction?

Mr. LUNN: I am not aware of that fact. The matter is being considered now by the Commission of Inquiry in Palestine, and I must really await their Report.

Major NATHAN: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a number of those who were disarmed were British subjects who were also Jews, and that they were disarmed on the sole ground that they were Jews? Is it the policy of His Majesty's Government to discriminate between the various religions?

TOMB, JERUSALEM (DAMAGE).

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: 39.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies the nature and the extent of the damage done by Jews to the Moslem holy places?

Mr. LUNN: It has been claimed that damage was done by Jews to a certain tomb and surrounding edifices in the Zikron Moshe quarter of Jerusalem. The claim remains to be investigated. No other cases have been reported. I take this opportunity of stating that rumours at one time current that Jews had attacked the Haram-al-Sharif or sacred buildings therein are entirely without foundation.

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is the hon. gentleman aware that the shrine of the Prophet's Companion was looted and the Koran destroyed there?

Earl WINTERTON: Will the hon. Gentleman consider awaiting the Report of the Committee of Investigation before answering specific charges of this kind, in view of the fact that he has said that he was unable to give any information till the Report was received?

Mr. LUNN: I thank the Noble Lord for the suggestion, which I hope the House will take note of.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: In view of the suggestion that damage has been done to the tomb of the Prophet's Companion, a sort of rumour which will do infinite harm, will the hon. Gentleman take early steps to contradict the rumour, which I believe to be entirely fallacious?

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: May I show the right hon. Gentleman a photograph of this tomb and the Koran which has been destroyed, which I have with me, to show that this is not a rumour but is perfectly true?

WAILING WALL.

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: 40.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies the present position with regard to the Burak; whether he is aware that the Wailing Wall is legally the absolute property of the Moslem community, with the strip of pavement facing it; that the placing there of tables, chairs, screens, etc., is against the status quo; whether he can state the temporary regulations that are now being enforced; whether he is aware that this enforcement is giving rise to a serious situation; and when these temporary regulations are to be withdrawn?

Mr. LUNN: A memorandum relating to the Western or Wailing Wall in Jerusalem was presented to Parliament in November last as a White Paper (Cmd. 3229), and I would invite the hon. and gallant Member's attention to the statements contained in that paper with regard to the status quo, which could not conveniently be summarised in a reply. I will place a copy of the temporary Regulations in the Library of the House. These regulations were promulgated, with the Secretary of State's approval, as a matter of urgency with a view to the preservation of good order and docorum. As the High Commissioner has announced locally, the regulations are of a temporary and provisional character. They do not purport to define the existing rights of either Moslems or Jews, nor do they prejudice the rights and claims either of Jews or of Moslems. I appreciate the necessity of an early and authoritative settlement to replace these temporary regulations, and His Majesty's Government are giving close and active consideration to this difficult question.

DEAD SEA SALTS (CONCESSION).

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: 36.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the draft agreement with Mr. Novamesky for the Dead Sea Concessions, whose terms were given in the White Paper isued three days before the dissolution, has now been ratified?

Mr. LUNN: As I stated in reply to a question on 17th July, a preliminary agreement was signed on 22nd May. The final draft of the concession is now under consideration.

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in a White Paper issued two days before the Dissolution we were promised a discussion on the matter before it is finally ratified, and will that take place?

Mr. LUNN: I cannot answer for any promise made by a previous Government.

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this is one of the causes of the trouble in Palestine?

Mr. LUNN: The question is not whether the Government will provide an opportunity for discussion.

Rear-Admiral BEAMISH: Is the House to understand that this agreement has been under consideration since July?

Mr. LUNN: The hon. and gallant Gentleman may understand that the answer I have given is a correct one.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA.

NATIVE RESERVES.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 41.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what action the Secretary of State proposes in connection with the measure to vest Kenya Native reserves in trustees with the power to lease part of such lands to persons of European descent?

Mr. LUNN: I would refer my right hon. and gallant Friend to the reply which I gave on 6th November to the right hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Ormsby-Gore). As regards leases of land in a native reserve these will not be confined, as my right hon. and gallant Friend seems to suggest, to persons of European descent, but may be for development by members of another tribe
or for joint undertakings as between Government natives and European enterprise.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that these leases of land in the native reserve may be given to whites under an Ordinance which is now being considered in Kenya, and will he take care that natives have not got this just cause of fear that this Clause in the Bill may be used to alienate their rights?

Mr. LUNN: I shall be very pleased to convey to; my Noble Friend what the right hon. Gentleman says.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I suppose I am right in thinking that it is possible for the Secretary of State still to effect a modification in a Bill which has not yet been passed by the Kenya Legislature?

RAIDS.

Sir ROBERT HAMILTON: 43.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has now received from the Government of Kenya Colony Reports upon the raids made into that Colony by Abyssinian raiders; and if it is proposed to publish such Reports in this country?

Mr. LUNN: The answer is a very long one and, with my hon. Friend's permission, I will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Sir R. HAMILTON: Does the answer contain full Reports of the various raids?

Mr. LUNN: That is my intention.
Following is the answer:
I presume that the hon. Member has in mind the raids into Kenya, west of Lake Rudolf, which were referred to in his question of the 10th July. Two such raids have been notified during the present year, and each has formed the subject of a Report by the Government of Kenya to the Secretary of State. The former was a raid by Marille tribesmen in March along the western shore of Lake Rudolf, some 25 miles south of the Kenya-Sudan frontier, and the latter a raid in May by Marille and Donyiro tribesmen at Lorumu, just south of the Kenya-Sudan frontier, approximately 40 miles west of Lake Rudolf. In both cases the raiding parties were followed and engaged
by patrols of the King's African Rifles, and severely handled. As regards publication, a list of raids from Abyssinian territory into Kenya between 1916 and 1928 was published last year as Command Paper 3217. Particulars of raids into Kenya since 1928 have not been published in this country, but the raid in March referred to above formed the subject of a communique issued by the Kenya Government which was reproduced in the Press here on the 6th April.

DEFENCE FORCE.

Sir ALFRED KNOX: 56.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any action has been taken by the present Government with regard to the Kenya Defence Force; and how many persons to date have been exempted from compulsory service in this force?

Mr. LUNN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. As regards the second part, the figures are not available in the Colonial Office.

COMMITTEES OF INQUIRY.

Mr. BECKETT: 45.
asked the Prime Minister how many of the chairmen of the 14 Committees of Inquiry set up by this Government are declared supporters of the Government?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): I can only refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave on Monday last in reply to the question which he addressed to me

Mr. BECKETT: Is it possible for the right hon. Gentleman to give a few simple figures in reply to a properly put question.

The PRIME MINISTER: I replied to the question on Monday.

ZINOVIEFF LETTER.

Sir B. FALLE: 46.
asked the Prime Minister if it is proposed to inquire further into the matter of the Zinovieff letter and to appoint a committee of experts for that purpose?

The PRIME MINISTER: The answer is in the negative.

IMPERIAL CONFERENCE.

Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: 47.
asked the Prime Minister whether, with a view to securing a more general expression of opinion on matters coming before the next Imperial Conference, he will consider extending invitations to the leaders of the Opposition party in each of the Dominions?

The PRIME MINISTER: The suggestion that Imperial Conferences should not be confined to representatives of parties in office for the time being is one which has been made from time to time in the past, and I myself in 1924 put it forward tentatively to the Prime Ministers of the Dominions in an official communication. It will be seen from the correspondence which took place on that occasion, and which was published in Command Paper No. 2301 of 1925, that the suggestion did not meet with support, and I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by its being made again at the present time.

Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: I put down this question to the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, and I want to thank the Prime Minister for having had it transferred to his list.

ZAMBESI BRIDGE (LABOUR CONDITIONS).

Mr. CHARLES BUXTON: 48.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state, in connection with the work on the construction of the Zambesi Bridge and the other schemes recommended by the Colonial Development Advisory Committee, what steps he proposes to take to secure that the conditions of labour laid down in the Colonial Development Act, 1929, shall be observed, i.e., that the wages paid shall not be less than the standard rates; that no forced labour shall be used; and that an age limit shall be established under which no children shall be employed?

Mr. LUNN: Regular periodical reports will be required from all Governments concerned. In the special case of the Zambesi Bridge, which will not be in British territory, steps will be taken to include safeguards regarding conditions of labour in the terms of the contract.

Mr. L'ESTRANGE MALONE: Will there be an inspector to see that this work is carried out?

Mr. LUNN: I cannot say definitely that that will be so, but we hope to get decent conditions and even better conditions than those contained in the Act.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Has the contract yet been let, or not?

Mr. LUNN: Not yet.

Mr. FERGUS GRAHAM: 65.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any definite orders in connection with the Zambesi Bridge have yet been placed; and whether negotiations with the Portuguese Government regarding the security of title for the investment of British public money in this undertaking have been satisfactorily concluded?

Mr. LUNN: The answer to the first part is in the negative. There is no reason to discuss the validity of the concession, which has never been doubted.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Can my hon. Friend say whether there is any chance of the Government consulting with Sir George Schuster now that he is back from India on this matter of the Zambesi Bridge which he turned down in his original report?

Mr. LUNN: I should require notice of that question.

FIJI (FRANCHISE).

Major POLE: 49.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in regard to the franchise under the new reforms in Fiji, he is aware that the income qualification of £75 imposed on the Indian community disfranchises most of the agricultural labourers, the municipal workers, cooks and other domestic servants, as well as factory hands in the small industries; and whether he will consider the proposal of the Indian community in Fiji that the income qualification should be reduced to a level comparable to the lowest wage paid by the sugar company in the Colony?

Mr. LUNN: I have nothing to add to the reply to my hon. Friend's question of the 11th July on this subject except that the Secretary of State has not yet received a communication from the
Government in Fiji in regard to the proposal mentioned in the latter part of the question.

BRITISH GUIANA (EDUCATION).

Major POLE: 50.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies the number of aided schools in British Guiana providing primary and higher education for Indian children in the colony, and the number of Indian male and female scholars attending these schools?

Mr. LUNN: As this answer is rather long and contains a number of figures, I will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
Following is the answer:
There are 266 primary State-aided schools in British Guiana, and six aided schools providing secondary education. No racial discrimination is practised in regard to any of these schools.
Of the 25,319 boys and 19,608 girls receiving primary education in 1928, 9,295 and 3,913 respectively were East Indian.
There were 241 boys and 289 girls in the secondary schools. My information does not show how many of these were East Indian, but I understand that the ratio is similar to that in the primary schools.
I have no figures relating to the children of the aboriginal Indians in the Colony. Adequate provision is made for their education by a number of Mission schools, which receive state aid.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN RHODESIA.

PUBLIC SERVICES.

Earl WINTERTON: 51.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps have been taken to increase the public services in respect of roads, education and health in Northern Rhodesia to meet the demands of the large increase in the European population as a result of recent mining development; and whether any scheme of land settlement has yet been adopted?

Mr. LUNN: The principle of a development loan and a building programme has been sanctioned. The loan will also provide funds for surveys of land suitable
for European settlement and advances to settlers for fencing, etc.

Earl WINTERTON: In view of the fact that in the last four or five years there has been increasing development in this country and that the white population has increased by 100 per cent., are we to understand that, although a loan has been sanctioned, nothing has been done?

Mr. LUNN: The matter is now under consideration by the Committee which is dealing with the Colonial Development Fund.

Earl WINTERTON: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that this matter has been under consideration by the late Government and the present Government for a period of something like four years? Will he further say, in view of the initiative that we are told has been brought into the Government by him and his hon. and right hon. Friends, when he proposes to put this matter into operation?

COPPER MINES (EMPLOYéS).

Sir A. KNOX: 57.
asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies what are the present estimated numbers of Europeans and natives, respectively, at present employed on the copper mines of Northern Rhodesia; what hospital accommodation for these employé s is now provided, and where; whether any new schools are now being built to provide for the education of children of employés in these mines; whether any new legislation regarding safety and work men's compensation has been passed to protect workers in these mines; and whether he will require the furnishing of regular reports on all casualties similar to the returns required from the mines in the Gold Coast?

Mr. LUNN: For the whole industry: natives, 14,883; Europeans, 1,118. Well equipped hospitals are now available at the established mines and are being provided at mines in the development stage. Educational questions and revision of existing protective legislation are under consideration. Regular casualty reports will be required.

Earl WINTERTON: Can the hon. Gentleman give any indication when this period of consideration will be brought to an end?

MINES (LABOUR RECRUITING).

Mr. F. GRAHAM: 66.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the mining companies operating in Northern Rhodesia recruit native labour locally or at a distance from the mines; whether any native labour is being brought to these mines from Nyasaland and other neighbouring territories; what is the number of labour commissioners in the service of the Northern Rhodesian Government; and what arrangements are being made for the care and supervision of labourers in transit between the mines and their homes?

Mr. LUNN: Companies obtain labour both locally and from a distance. Recruiting in Nyasaland is not allowed. Duties in connection with labour are carried out by the district administration. I have no information with regard to the last part of the question.

CYPRUS.

Mr. ANNESLEY SOMERVILLE: 55.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Secretary of State has received a deputation of Greeks from Cyprus; what representations they made to him; and what was the nature of his reply?

Mr. F. GRAHAM: 64.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any political or constitutional changes in the island of Cyprus are contemplated; and whether these matters were recently discussed with the deputation of Cypriots recently received by the Secretary of State for the Colonies?

Mr. LUNN: My Noble Friend recently received a deputation of Cypriot Greeks who asked for the union of the island with Greece. The answer given was that. His Majesty's Government could hold out no hope of meeting this request. They also put forward certain proposals for constitutional change in regard to which no final decision has yet been taken.

TANGANYIKA.

Sir A. LAMBERT WARD: 62.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what progress is being made
with the Tanga-Dar-es-Salaam road in Tanganyika, advocated by the Hilton Young Commission?

Mr. LUNN: My Noble Friend understands that, except for a section of some 35 miles, a practicable road exists between these two points, but he has no information as to whether or when the Tanganyika Government propose to complete the road.

Sir A. LAMBERT WARD: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the road as it exists at present is entirely unsuitable for motor traffic, or at any rate heavy motor traffic, and that the bridges will not carry a weight exceeding 1½ to 2 tons?

Mr. LUNN: I am not aware of that fact, but, as I have said, we have no information as to when it will be completed.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Will the hon. Gentleman make a special inquiry of the Government of Tanganyika regarding this particular road, as I understand there is a good deal of public feeling about the condition of the bridges?

Mr. LUNN: I will.

SWAZILAND.

Mr. MANDER: 67.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is proposed to make any change in the status of Swaziland?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. Ponsonby): No proposal for any such change is under consideration at present.

LEGAL RELATIONSHIP OF THE EMPIRE.

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of COLONEL GRETTON:

69. To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs if the Report of the committee of experts now sitting upon the legal relationship of the Empire as affected by the resolution passed by the last Imperial Conference will be laid?

Colonel GRETTON: On a point of Order. I put down this question the other day in consequence of statements
made by the Prime Minister in the course of his speech on Tuesday of last week. I see that the question has been transferred to the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs. I have received no information of the change and, therefore, I desire to postpone this question until Tuesday next in order to ask it of the Prime Minister.

DOMINION AND MERCHANT SHIPPING LEGISLATION.

Sir A. LAMBERT WARD: 71.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs when he hopes to receive the Reports of the sub-conference on Dominion legislation and of the expert committee on merchant shipping legislation; and whether it is intended that those Reports should be published?

Mr. PONSONBY: The conference on the operation of Dominion legislation and merchant shipping legislation is still sitting, and I cannot at present say when its work is likely to be finished. The question of publication of any Report which may be made will be a matter for consideration by the respective Governments in consultation as soon as the conference has completed its labours.

EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: 72.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether any communication has been received from the Australian Government in relation to the proposed suspension of the assisted migration scheme?

Mr. PONSONBY: A telegram has been received from the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia stating that it has been decided to suspend for the present the grant of assisted passages to Australia. I have received no communication on the subject from any of the State Governments, but I would point out that under the arrangements hitherto in force the grant of assisted passages is a matter for the Commonwealth and not for the State Governments.

Mr. EVERARD: Might it not be a good thing if the Lord Privy Seal went there, in view of the difficulties in regard
to employment in this country, in order to put the matter right?

Oral Answers to Questions — AVIATION.

AIR MAIL SERVICES.

Mr. DAY: 78.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether a Report has been received from the survey party, which consists of an Air Ministry official, with reference to the establishment of an air mail line between Africa and Egypt; and can he say whether the Government have made any further progress in the establishment of an air mail route between India and Australia?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Mr. Montague): As regards the first part of the question, the survey party left England only on 25th October and I do not expect, therefore, to receive a Report for some time. As regards the second part of the question, I have nothing to add to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) on 30th October.

AIRSHIP R101.

Sir G. PENNY: 79.
asked the Under- Secretary of State for Air whether he will take steps to see that each political party is equally represented on a percentage basis in the proposed flight in R101?

Mr. MONTAGUE: No, Sir. I do not want to deal with airships in any party spirit. I think, if I may say so, that the ballot which was held for places between the Members who put their names down was the fairest way of deciding the matter. Actually, I understand that the result worked out not very differently from that which the hon. Member's suggestion would give.

Sir G. PENNY: Does not the hon. Member realise that if there was any disaster and there was an uneven proportion of parties represented in the flight, it might cause very unfair by-elections, cause a great strain on election funds, and upset the happy position in which parties find themselves in this House at the present time?

Mr. MONTAGUE: I do not think that anyone in this House can command fate.

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: What redress will a constituency have whose Member is unsuccessful in the ballot? Will there be a second ballot?

Mr. MONTAGUE: I believe that the question of a second trip is under consideration.

Mr. MALONE: 80.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether airship R 101 can carry sufficient fuel to fly from England to India in still air without refuelling en route; and, if so, what passenger or freight loan can she carry?

Mr. MONTAGUE: The Air Ministry's published programme has from the very first provided for the operation of the Indian airship route with an intermediate halt in Egypt for refuelling. It is for that reason that a mooring tower base has been erected at Ismailia. The second part of the question does not, therefore, arise.

PATENTS.

Mr. MALONE: 81.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether any royalties have been paid in respect of any of the patents held by Squadron-Leader Scott and Lieut.-Colonel Richmond relating to airships; whether any of these patents have been developed by public money; whether the Air Ministry has any control over these patents; and what is the position as regards the future value of these patents?

Mr. MONTAGUE: The answer to the first part of the question is that no royalties have been paid by the Air Ministry. As regards the second and third parts, some of the inventions covered by the patents have been developed by public money and are embodied in airship R 101. The Air Ministry has the right of user of these inventions for the service of the Crown in any part of the world free of royalty or other payment and has also certain control over the commercial rights in the inventions under agreements with the inventors. The answer to the last part of the question is that it is not possible to forecast the future value of the patents.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

ROAD TRAFFIC BILL.

Sir G. PENNY: 82.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he can state the date when the Motor Vehicles Bill will be introduced; and if any definite decision has been come to regarding third-party risks?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I hope it may be possible to introduce a Road Traffic Bill in the other House shortly. The question of the provision of cover against injury to third parties is being exhaustively considered, but I would ask the hon. Member to await the introduction of the Bill.

Sir G. PENNY: Will the hon. Member give sympathetic consideration to including in the Bill provision for creating a fund whereby voluntary hospitals can be recompensed for the amount that they spend in treating injuries through motor traffic?

Mr. MORRISON: I have already answered a question some time ago on that point. My hon. Friend will find the answer on record in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Sir WILLIAM MITCHELL-THOMSON: Does the hon. Member contemplate introducing the Bill this side of Christmas?

Mr. MORRISON: I hope it will be introduced before Christmas.

Sir HERBERT NIELD: With a view to the creation of a fund, will the hon. Member institute legislation to enable the Government to take part of the fines inflicted by the magistrates on motorists who offend against the law?

Mr. MORRISON: I am afraid that I have nothing to add to the answer which I have previously given.

ROAD ACCIDENTS.

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: 85.
asked the Minister of Transport the total casualties and accidents in England and Wales up to the latest available time; and if he will say what proposals he intends to make to reduce the number of casualties?

Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: I am informed that the latest statistics of road
accidents are those for the year ended 31st December, 1928, which were presented to the House last Session. My proposals for the better regulation of road traffic will be included in any Bill on this subject which I may be in a position to introduce.

ROAD GRANTS (BRITISH MATERIALS).

Lieut.-Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALL: 86.
asked the Minister of Transport what were the respective amounts of imported American bitumen and of British tar used on the repair of roads in this country in the years 1924 and 1928, respectively, towards the upkeep of which grants are made from the Road Fund; and if he will consider as to making it a condtion of such grants that a suitable proportion of British materials shall be used?

Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: Information is not available which will enable me to reply to the first part of the question. I am doing all that is possible to encourage the use of British materials; but the question of the most suitable material for the particular work proposed is primarily a matter for decision by the authorities concerned. In my opinion, it would not be wise to hamper unduly the discretion of local authorities in this respect.

Sir F. HALL: Will the hon. Member bring to the notice of the local authorities the fact that the tar producing industries utilise an enormous amount of British coal for the manufacture of their product, and, having regard to the trouble in the mining districts at the present, time, will he do all that is possible for the utilisation of tar products, in order to lessen unemployment in the mining; districts?

Mr. MORRISON: Those are factors which, among others, will be kept in mind.

Commander WILLIAMS: Will the hon. Member consider giving an increased percentage grant when British material only is used?

Mr. MORRISON: No, Sir. The existing arrangements with regard to preference for British materials are, in my judgment, adequate to meet the situation.

TRACTOR-TRAILERS AND TRAILERS.

Captain CROOKSHANK: 87.
asked the Minister of Transport if his attention has been called to a recently constructed motor-lorry designed to transport loads weighing up to 100 tons; and, if so, whether he proposes to take any action to prohibit the use of such vehicles on the roads?

Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: My attention has been drawn to tractor-trailers and trailers constructed to carry weights of 100 tons, and even more. These vehicles are locomotives or will be drawn by locomotives within the meaning of the Locomotives Act, 1898, and their speed is limited to four miles per hour in the country and two miles per hour in towns. These vehicles are normally used for the conveyance of single individual articles of great weight, such as transformers, steel castings, etc., which cannot be transported by rail owing to their size. Any damage caused by their use is, under the Locomotives Act, 1898, deemed to be damage caused by excessive weight in respect of which the user is responsible. I am advised that the use of these vehicles for this purpose is essential, and accordingly I do not propose to take any action.

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: Can the hon. Member say whether the damage is applicable to the road surface? We know that it is applicable to culverts. This is a most important question for the county councils.

TRACTION ENGINES (SPARKS).

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: 88.
asked the Minister of Transport whether his attention has been drawn to the damage done to houses and crops in the neighbourhood of main roads by fires caused by sparks from traction engines; and whether he proposes to take any steps to guard against this danger before next summer?

Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: I have nothing to add to the answer which I gave to a similar question by the hon. Member on the 4th July last.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise the seriousness of this question, and will he introduce some proposal in the Road Traffic Bill to deal with the matter?

Mr. MORRISON: As I informed the hon. and gallant Member on the 4th July, the point has been under consideration in connection with the drafting of the Road Traffic Bill.

Earl WINTERTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that in 1905 a Bill was introduced creating for the first time a liability on the railway company for damage caused by sparks from railway locomotives and will he put the same liability on the owners of traction engines in the proposed Road Traffic Bill?

Mr. MORRISON: That is one of the precedents we have in mind in connection with that Measure.

HYDE PARK (RAILINGS).

Sir W. DAVISON: 89.
asked the First Commissioner of Works whether any proposal has been made to him for the removal of the railings around Hyde Park; and whether he contemplates taking any action in this matter?

The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Lansbury): The suggestion that the railings surrounding Hyde Park should be removed has been made from time to time, but, as at present advised, I am not prepared to take any action in the matter.

STEAMSHIP "VESTRIS"(INQUIRY).

Mr. T. LEWIS: 90.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the names of the three counsel who represented the Board of Trade at the inquiry into the sinking of the steamer "Vestris," and the amount of fees paid to each.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. W. R. Smith): Counsel representing the Board of Trade were Sir Thomas Inskip, K.C., M.P., Mr. Norman Raeburn, K.C., and Mr. L. F. C. Darby. The fees payable to each were £1,031 3s., £2,149 and £1,236 15s. respectively.

Mr. LEWIS: Can the hon. Gentleman say the basis on which these fees are paid to the law officers; and in what manner were the briefs marked?

Mr. SMITH: I could not give that information without notice.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (REFRESHMENT DEPARTMENT).

Captain CROOKSHANK: 92.
asked the hon. Member for the Gorton Division, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, whether it is the intention of the Committee to see that only national-mark beef and flour is used by the refreshment departments of this House?

Mr. COMPTON: I can assure the hon. Member that only the finest quality national-mark beef and flour is used in the refreshment department of this House.

Captain CROOKSHANK: Will the hon. Member bring his reply to the notice of his colleagues on the Front Bench and see that the same thing is done in the Army, Navy, and Air Force?

Mr. COMPTON: I am quite prepared to recommend my reply to my colleagues on the Front Bench, and also to some hon. Members opposite who are connected with many of the hotels and restaurants in this city.

OLD AGE PENSIONERS (PURCHASES).

Mr. HORRABIN: 94.
asked the Minister of Health if he has received any complaints of sub-postmasters, who are also shopkeepers, bringing undue pressure to bear on old age pensioners to purchase articles when drawing their pension money; and, if so, whether he will take some action in the matter?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Miss Lawrence): My right hon. Friend has not received any complaints of the nature mentioned by my hon. Friend.

Mr. BLINDELL: May I ask whether it will be the policy of the hon. Lady's Department to discourage such questions as this with its nasty imputation against small shopkeepers and sub-postmasters?

NAVY, ARMY, AND AIR FORCE, INSTITUTE.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 96.
asked the Secretary of State far War whether any representations have reached him as the result of a decision at the recent conference of the National Chamber of Trade against the rejection of any proposal to
give the Navy, Army, and Air Force Institute any monopoly of trading in Service establishments, and to restrict their trading to their legitimate and definite sphere; that opportunity should be given to Service men and their families to purchase from private traders, and that no influence should be exercised to dissuade them; and what action he proposes to take?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. T. Shaw): No such representations have reached me.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that I put this question to the First Lord of the Admiralty, and there fare I am not surprised that the representations have not reached him. Now that they have reached him, will the right hon. Gentleman take notice of the question?

ARMY SCHOOLS, INDIA (SCHOOLMISTRESSES).

Miss RATHBONE: 97.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he will state, with regard to the civilian schoolmistresses who have been recruited for temporary service in Army schools in India, why such schoolmistresses are being graded as of lower status than nursing sisters; and, as a number of civilian schoolmistresses have withdrawn their applications for temporary Army service when they have learned the conditions under which they will be required to serve, will he say what action he proposes to take in the matter?

Mr. SHAW: These ladies temporarily fill vacancies for Queen's Army Schoolmistresses and therefore are subject to the conditions applicable to those permanently appointed. The conditions attaching to Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service do not apply. The conditions of service are under consideration at the present moment.

TELEPHONE SERVICE (TRUNK CALL DEPOSITS).

Sir FREDERICK THOMSON: 98.
asked the Postmaster-General what is the sum that the Post Office have standing at the credit of telephone users on deposit for trunk calls?

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Viant): The total amount held on deposit on the 30th September, 1929, was £2,690,717. This covers local calls and phonograms as well as trunk calls. Separate figures for the latter service are not available.

Sir F. THOMSON: This is a large sum. Can the hon. Member see his way to make a reduction in the amount?

Mr. VIANT: When the subscribers pay their accounts, i.e., about five weeks after the end of each quarter, the Department holds a sum of about £2,500,000 in excess of the accrued liabilities of subscribers for rental and call fees. This credit disappears and is replaced by a debit which increases to about £2,500,000 just before the next quarter's accounts are sent out and paid.

Sir G. PENNY: Will the hon. Member also see that subscribers have better attention on the telephones?

FISHING FLEET DISASTER.

Mr. SINKINSON: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he could give the House any information on the disaster to the Scottish fishing fleet in East Anglian waters?

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. William Adamson): I am deeply grieved to announce that a serious disaster befell the Scottish fishing fleet off the East Anglian coast on Monday afternoon. The fleet put to sea early in the morning, before the gale warning reached the skippers, and proceeded to the fishing ground, where they shot their nets. About 1 p.m., when all the nets were out, a gale of great fury swept the fleet, with the result that two drifters were sunk and three lives lost. Some 200 vessels fishing from Lowestoft lost 11,000 nets, and 400 vessels fishing from Yarmouth lost 20,000 nets. The present value of the nets lost is about £90,000, and the cost of replacement will be about £150,000. Many of the Scottish vessels have now no nets, and may be compelled to abandon fishing and return home. I would express my keenest sympathy, and I am sure the sympathy of this House, with the relatives of the men who have lost their lives and with all these brave and kindly men who, with their families,
are thus stricken further into distress through circumstances over which they hold no control.

Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will consider taking steps to meet the urgent need of the men who have lost their nets and assist them to replace the gear which they are unable to replace themselves?

Mr. ADAMSON: I am continuing my inquiries into the magnitude of the disaster. It is clearly impossible for me at the moment to add anything to the answer which I have given.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Has the right hon. Gentleman the names of the two boats which were lost and their home ports?

Mr. ADAMSON: No, I do not know the ports to which the ships belong, but I have the names of the two men who were lost—two Scotsmen. An English fisherman also lost his life. I do not know the names of the boats or the ports from which they come.

Marquess of TITCHFIELD: May I ask whether any of these boats were insured?

Mr. ADAMSON: I cannot answer that question. I am not sure of the position. I fear that the nets will not be insured, but I am not in a position to say so.

Mr. ALBERY: In view of the magnitude of this disaster to the fishing fleet, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will consider approaching the Lord Mayor of London with a view to opening a National Fund to replace these nets?

SENTENCE (BRIERLEY HILL, STAFFORDSHIRE).

Mr. SEXTON: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Home Affairs whether his attention has been called to the case of Arthur Brown, an unemployed ex-service man, who lost a leg in the late War, and whose trial for non-payment of local rates at Brierley Hill Police Court, Staffordshire, was interrupted by the Two Minutes Silence on Armistice Day, and who, after the expiration of the Two Minutes Silence, was sentenced to 14 days' imprisonment for the non-payment of local rates, there
being no household goods to distrain; and, in view of the fact that the total income to support this man and his family does not exceed 33s. weekly, mainly from disability pension, will the right hon. Gentleman take steps, if possible, to secure a remission of the sentence?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Short): My right hon. Friend has no power to take such steps, for the Prerogative does not extend to sums of this character, but he learns from, the Press that the sum due has been paid and that Brown is not in prison.

Mr. SEXTON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, owing to the gracious intervention of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, that has been done, but it does not detract from the legal position, and this may happen again; and is the hon. Gentleman also aware that the magistrate who sentenced this prisoner added insult to injury—

HON. MEMBERS: Order!

Oral Answers to Questions — BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS.

ELECTRICITY SUPPLY.

Mr. HOPKIN: I beg to give notice that, this day four weeks, I shall call attention to the question of electricity supply, and move a Resolution.

COLONIAL POLICY.

Mr. MARLEY: I beg to give notice that, this day four weeks, I shall call attention to Colonial policy in relation to coloured races, and move a Resolution.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE (AGRICULTURAL WORKERS).

Mr. HOFFMAN: I beg to give notice that, this day four weeks, I shall call attention to the question of the extension of unemployment insurance to agricultural workers, and move a Resolution.

RIGHTS OF NEUTRALS IN WAR.

Mr. DALLAS: I beg to give notice that, this day four weeks, I shall call attention to the question of the rights of neutrals in time of war, and move a Resolution.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.

Report in respect of the Poor Law Bill [Lords] (pending in the Lords) brought up, and read;

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

MINERS (PENSIONS) BILL,

"to provide for the allocation of part of the moneys standing to the credit of the Welfare Fund from time to time to a fund and to provide for the payment of pensions thereout to aged miners on their ceasing to work in or about coal mines; and to extend the period during which payment shall be made into the Welfare Fund," presented by Sir William Edge; supported by Major Owen, Mr. Ernest Evans, Colonel England, and Mr. Foot; to be read a Second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 65.]

EDUCATION.

4.0 p.m.

Sir DONALD MACLEAN: I beg to move,
That this House urges the Government to bring forward without delay the details of its scheme for raising the school age, especially the financial proposals connected therewith, so that local education authorities may know what their obligations are likely to be; and further urges that any changes in the existing law that require legislation shall at once be put in the form of a Bill and presented to this House.
As a rather old observer, I have noticed in connection with this matter indications that some denominational wagons have been hitched to the educational star; but I think I express the general desire of the House when I say that we all hope that this discussion will not be switched off on to religious issues. If I briefly sketch the position of what is called elementary education in this country perhaps the time will not be entirely wasted. In 1833 this House, in what was then regarded as an unusual access of generosity, voted a sum of £20,000 to assist in the building of schools in this country. The estimated expenditure of the country this year is no less than £61,500,000, of which £34,000,000 is paid by the Treasury and £27,000,000 comes from the rates. Obviously, there has been a very great change, and that change has been accompanied by a periodic rise in the age at which children are able to leave school without getting exemption. It interested me on looking into this matter to note that the age of 13 which was fixed in 1870 remained without alteration and subject to very wide exemptions until 1880, and the raising of the school age to 14, without exemption, lasted until 1922.
4.0 p.m.
The Motion before the House deals with the decision of the Government, announced after some hesitating delay, to raise the age to 15 in April, 1931. That shows rather jerky but on the whole satisfactory progress in the conception of what view the State should hold with regard to education. I think it can be said that the proposal before the House is not due to any sympathy or any philanthropic idea. It is, I hope and believe, due to the rising sense of the citizenship of the child. The poorest child in this country ought to be, and legally is, as much a citizen as the oldest,
richest and most powerful man in it. I hope that it is with that view that the House will approach the consideration of this most important question. Undoubtedly the best interest of the nation is the well-being of its childhood, looking, as this House must at all times, not four or five years ahead, but taking the long view of the effective existence of the nation itself.
Let me make a short reference to the facts relating to our competitors—if one may call them so—who struggle with us for a share of the world's trade. What is their policy with regard to the education of their children? Many countries are far in advance of ourselves, and no one who contemplates the commercial and industrial future of this country can be otherwise than alarmed at the prospect for the future leaders and workers in industry unless they are equipped for their tremendous task in facing those with whom they have to compete. However, something must be said in fairness to ourselves. Education up to the age of 15 has been attained in Norway, Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, but when we come to the United States of America we find the greatest conception of what the education of children should be. In 43 of the States, I believe, there are provisions for the education of children to the age of 15 and upwards. If the House implements the undertaking of the Government to make 15 the school-leaving age, without any exemptions, it will place itself on a level with most of the other countries in the world, notably with the general rule even in America itself; that is so long as it is thoroughly understood that in raising the school age from 14 to 15, you do not only mean to keep the children in school for an extra year, but that in the right and full sense of the term you carry out a conception of education referred to in what is now a classic on the subject, the Hadow Report.
The raising of the school age from 14 to 15 means far more than a raising of the age from 13 to 14. Primary education is supposed to cease at about 11, but adolescence in both boys and girls cannot be overlooked when you come to the age of 14 or 15. It would be far better to leave the whole matter alone than to stop short at providing buildings and an additional number of teachers. Our system of education must
be reorganised in such a way that the whole conception of our schools will be changed, and it will be recognised that the schools are established as a training ground not only in very elementary subjects but to enable the children to take the full duties of citizenship. A sound secondary education should begin shortly after 11 years of age. That being so, I cannot see how, in view of the resolution passed by this House as far back as 8th April, 1925, we have any option but to see how our ideals can be put into practice. I would like to read the very remarkable Resolution which was passed, without a Division and after a limiting Amendment had been withdrawn, on 8th April, 1925, when the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) was Minister for Education. This is the Resolution:
This House is of opinion that local education authorities should be called upon to prepare schemes by which, within a reasonable period, adequate provision may be made for secondary or some form of full-time post-primary education for all children up to the age of 16, for a progressive increase in the percentage of free places maintained in grant-aided secondary schools, and for the development of maintenance allowances on such a scale that no children may be debarred from higher education by the poverty of their parents."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th April, 1925; col. 2350, Vol. 182.]
Shortly after that remarkable Resolution was passed the Hadow Committee was set up. I will quote only the first part of its first recommendation:
That primary education should be regarded as ending at about the age of 11. At that age a second stage … should begin, and should be envisaged so far as possible as a single whole which will be marked by the common characteristic that its aim is to provide for the needs of children who are entering and passing through the stage of adolescence.
That word "adolescence" covers the problem. Unless the conception of the preparation for this new and great advance and the fact that you have to prepare your education for the adolescence stage is the predominant consideration, you will fall very far short of what the House and the people really intend. In other countries there have been, as I have indicated, very considerable advances. It is a fact that Scotland has already the power, by order of the Secretary of State for Scotland, to bring at once into operation a school-leaving age of 15. But we in this coun-
try cannot take that step without legislative action. No doubt other Scottish Members will speak in the Debate, but I can say that the problem in Scotland is relatively easy compared with the immense difficulties that have to be faced south of the Tweed. For many years in Scotland they have envisaged this question of the adolescents, and the preparation of them for the duties of citizenship. It should be mentioned that there are four areas south of the Tweed—East Suffolk, Carnarvonshire, Cornwall, which I have the honour to represent, and the City of Plymouth—which have made an excellent start. I wish I could say that in the full sense of the term the education of the adolescent was in full operation in those places. It must be admitted that to no small extent the raising of the school age has been accompanied by so large a measure of exemptions that to make it effective it will have to be brought within the ambit of a Statute.
Passing from that, let me refer to the circular which was issued in September by the Government. I want to ask my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education some questions. Is it proposed to retain the children for only one year without a corresponding readjustment of the whole of the educational system? What preparations has he made for advising the education authorities on such points as these: First, there will be the need for more accommodation, and that means more buildings and more extensions. How; does that matter stand? It really lies at the root of this part of the problem. I know that the education authorities have been allowed until the end of December for preparing their programmes, but what response has my right hon. Friend got from the education authorities? Have they really settled down to prepare their programmes as if they knew for certain that an Act was to come into operation in 1931? There is a second very important point. In many parts of the country, as we know, there are two separate authorities, one dealing with what is called the elementary school, and the other with secondary education. Which of these authorities is to be charged with the duty of erecting the new buildings that will be absolutely necessary? Are there to be two authorities so charged or a single authority?
After that there is the most important question of the teachers. You can erect or extend buildings but you cannot improvise a skilled teacher. For this tremendous task, you want skilled teachers of both sexes to achieve any degree of satisfaction and success in the education of the adolescent. That is a matter on which I really think my right hon. Friend must give us some information. There is another very important question, and that is in regard to equipment. What preparations, if any, are the great education authorities making to deal with this most important question? Then, what about the rural schools? The right hon. Gentleman's. Department has been good enough to give me some information on that subject, from which it appears that there are 7,000 civil parishes in England and Wales with only one public elementary school, and only 5,000 parishes in which the only school is a Church of England school. In practically all the remainder the school is a council school. The right hon. Gentleman really must grapple with this question of the rural schools in a wise, statesmanlike, and businesslike manner. In regard to maintenance, it is impossible to ask the parents of the children of this country to undertake without financial aid the very heavy extra expense involved in an insistence on retaining children in school for a year longer.
Another point is this: Has the right hon. Gentleman thought out the question of the effect of his proposal on the labour market, the unemployment question, the insurance question? The Hadow Report, issued in 1927, I think, said that the school-leaving age ought to be raised within five years from this date, but the Government, with great courage—and, as far as I am concerned, I am going to support them in their great task, and I think I can speak for my hon. and right hon. Friends as well—have said it must he done by 1931. They have 21 months in which to do it. 'When will the right hon. Gentleman let the House, the education authorities, and the country as a whole know when his Bill is going to be presented? He may give us some information on the subject this afternoon, but that is not enough. The country and the House are entitled to know the specific details of the Government's plan for this
tremendous educational advance, and as speedily as possible. I suggest that, in view of the fact that this notice was given in July last, the least the Government can do is to introduce the Bill next week and give the House a chance of debating the whole question before Christmas. I know the right hon. Gentleman has sent circulars to the local education authorities, but these authorities have well-grounded suspicions of Governments of all parties—and, indeed, who can tell the fate of this House electorally?—and the local authorities will not move until they know for certain what are the statutory obligations to be placed upon them. There are some education authorities which are progressive and some which undoubtedly are rather slack, and the right hon. Gentleman will get nothing out of those who do not want to do anything.
In conclusion, I want to mention the question indicated by two Amendments on the Paper, with regard to non- provided schools—
(1) In the name of the hon. Member for South Eastern Essex (Mr. Oldfield), in line 4, after the word "be," to insert the words:
to convene a conference of those specially interested in voluntary schools with a view to meeting their admitted difficulties;
(2) In the name of the hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle), in line 4, after the word "be," to insert the words:
to take cognisance of the fact that the Hadow Report is adverse to the existence of dual control in our national educational system, and to recognise that any extension of the principle of providing public money for sectarian teaching by extending or building sectarian schools would be contrary to the wishes of the great majority of the people, and would arouse bitter controversy calculated to harm the cause of education.
I should prefer that this discussion should be strictly related to-day to the practical, aspect of the question of raising the school-leaving age, but, after all, there is no good in minimising the facts. They are there. There was an answer given in this House by the President of the Board of Education on 31st October, in which he stated:
I have already made clear in my reply to a question on 4th July that His Majesty's Government are not prepared to alter the settlement of 1902 or to propose legislation to give building grants to voluntary schools, unless and until the main parties interested have reached some sort of agreement.
While the settlement of 1902 has failed to satisfy some ardent denominationalists and some of those who want complete public control, it has for the last 25 years freed educational progress from the bitterness of religious controversy which marked the preceding decade. I have not yet been approached by the representatives of any important interest suggesting any conference of responsible representatives. But the House can rest assured that. I shall at any time be prepared to do anything in my power to facilitate an agreed solution."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st October, 1929; cols. 323–4, Vol. 231.]
I do not want to bring in any controversial note that I can possibly avoid, but I was a Member of the House in 1906, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) took a very active part in the discussions on the Bill which became the Act of 1902. It is hardly fair to say that all religious differences were settled by that Act—

Mr. SPEAKER: I have come to the conclusion that the two Amendments on the Order Paper are not in order, being really outside the form of the right hon. Gentleman's Motion. If the right hon. Gentleman is going to speak with reference to those two Amendments, he equally will be out of order and outside the terms of his own Motion.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I have no doubt that if I utilised the training to which I have been subject for a good many years in this House, I might succeed in not mentioning the Amendments on the Paper, but I am heartily glad, if I may say so, of the Ruling which you, Mr. Speaker, have just given, and I will make no further reference at all to that question. While from the point of view of the actual legal situation there has been no change since 1902, there has been a change in another direction, and that is a change in the spirit in which this most difficult question of denominational education has been discussed. I am sure I am expressing the hope of the whole House when I say that when these questions do come up for discussion, as they must, the lessons we have learned since the Debates of 1906 and 1907, both in this House and in the country, will give wisdom, guidance, and sympathetic understanding in seeking a working solution of that most difficult question. I will conclude with this hope, that in all our discussions, whether connected with
technical, administrative, educational difficulties and with those very deep religious convictions which are held in all parts of the country, the dominating thought will be, not party advantage, not denominational advantage, but simply and solely the welfare of the child.

Lord EUSTACE PERCY: This is a private Member's afternoon, and I am therefore going to be, I hope, very brief indeed. In a short Debate like this, it is impossible to do more than barely touch on one or two of the problems involved in England alone. The Scottish problem, to which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean) referred in passing, is in some respects more acute, for in Scotland, I would remind the House, there is no system of State building grants at all, and moreover the school-leaving age can be raised by administrative order, so that the House will not even have an opportunity, with regard to Scotland, of discussing a Bill. It is obvious, therefore, that we must at some early date have a full day's discussion of the whole problem in England and Scotland, and this can only be regarded as a preliminary canter. To put very briefly the situation in England as it appears to me, it is a very puzzling situation. The Government propose to raise the school leaving age in April, 1931, but while reversing, as they are fully entitled to do, the policy of the late Government in this respect, they appear to have retained unaltered the construction programme of the late Government.
The right hon. Member for North Cornwall spoke about the necessity of this reorganisation of schools as an essential part of the raising of the school leaving age. I want to acknowledge at once that the right hon. Gentleman opposite has asserted that himself in the Circular he has sent round to the local education authorities, and he has entirely allayed any disquiet I might have had about that, but this reorganisation was laid down as the definite aim of local education authorities by a Circular which was issued by the late Government in 1927. Local education authorities were asked to draw up programmes for the period 1930–33 with a view to completing the reorganisation by April, 1933, and roughly speaking, though the figure was not mentioned in the
Circular, the standard set to the local education authorities for the country as a whole was about 2,100,000 senior school places. So far as I can see, the Government in proposing to raise the school leaving age from April, 1931, have neither shortened the period in which that programme is to be completed, nor increased the amount of accommodation to be provided. All that they have done is to say, "We will give to local education authorities a special higher building grant for a very limited period"; but they are giving that building grant, as I understand it from Circular 1404, to all schools which are commenced, so that they can be completed approximately by April, 1933. That is to say, the construction programme on which local authorities have been working under the late Government's policy, has remained unaltered.
I have no doubt, now that the school leaving age is to be raised, that education authorities will try to add a certain amount to their programmes, and will perhaps try to speed up their programmes, but essentially, we are still in the position of working for 2,100,000 places by April, 1933. While that would have been enough in 1933 if the school age had remained at 14 plus, these places will be required in 1931 if the school leaving age is raised to 15. They will be required two years earlier, but they are only to be completed two years later. Therefore, the senior accommodation is to be completed two years after the senior children are to be compelled to stay longer at school. These 2,100,000 places would be enough in 1931 even with the raising of the school leaving age; they will be enough in 1939; but they will not be approximately enough between 1931 and 1939. The result will be that for every 100 of these senior school places provided, you will have to accommodate 120 children roughly on the average of the whole country. The right hon. Gentleman has recognised that. He has not said, as I think that some of his followers are inclined to say, that no education authorities will have any difficulty in doing this, but he showed that he recognised that there would be serious difficulty when he met the local education authorities. According to the report of that meeting
The President said he was aware of the difficulties which the policy imposed on the local education authorities during the years when the number of elder children in the schools would be swollen, owing to the high post War birth rate. He urged that they should aim at a system which would operate with full efficiency when the school population became normal a few years hence. In the meanwhile, emergency measures would have to be adopted and concessions would have to be made.
What does that mean? The right hon. Gentleman wants the new system fully operative eight years after the children are compelled to stay at school. That can hardly be regarded as satisfactory, but he proposes to get over it by emergency measures and concessions. What is in his mind? What emergency measures and concessions does he mean? Is he going to grant large exemptions? Is he going to keep the senior children one year longer in the junior schools so as to relieve the pressure on the senior schools? Does he mean by emergency measures simply accommodation in army huts and so on? During the difficult period when the whole thing is being organised we are to be content, for seven years practically speaking, with makeshifts. My first question is, what are the emergency measures and the concessions which the right hon. Gentleman has in mind during this difficult period, and can he assure us that these measures will be sufficient to prevent an enlargement in the size of the classes. In an answer which the right hon. Gentleman gave to me the other day, he showed that between 1928 and 1929 there had been an unprecedentedly large decrease in the number of exceptionally large classes. In the four years 1925 to 1929 we have more than halved the number of excessive classes. Can he assure us that we are not to have a recrudescence of that evil during the emergency period?
My second question is, what effect is this going to have on juvenile employment? In the next six or seven years we shall have a great fluctuation in the number of young persons seeking employment between the ages of 14 and 18. We shall have a drop of about 350,000, or about 20 per cent., in the supply, and then a sudden increase in about two years of no less than 450,000. The raising of the school age in 1931 will accentuate the drop; it will more than double the decline in the number of young persons available for employment, and it will do
nothing whatever to even up the steep rise of 450,000 thereafter. These fluctuations are bound to cause a great deal of juvenile unemployment. The Minister of Labour, I understand, recognises that, and says that the situation is so serious that she is initiating an inquiry into the problem. Has not an inquiry been initiated already? Was it not present in the mind of the Minister and the Government when this decision was made, and this date of 1931 was taken? Was there any consultation with the Minister of Labour on the choosing of this date, and what was the policy in the mind of the Board of Education and the Ministry of Labour in choosing this particular date? What is going to be the effect on juvenile employment, and in view of all these facts, what was it that induced the Government to pick this date in April, 1931, a date which has never before been suggested, which is 18 months before the Hadow Committee suggested, and two-and-a-half years before the Association of Local Education Authorities recommended that it should be.
What were the considerations in the Government's mind? I know that it is said that whenever the school-leaving age is raised, there will be difficulties of this kind. I think that, however, is not the case. I am not now going to argue whether it is a good or a bad thing to raise the school-leaving age by general compulsion, but if the Government were resolved to raise it by general compulsion, there was a course open to them which would certainly have avoided all these abnormal difficulties. It was the proposal made by Sir Arthur Balfour's Committee on Trade and Industry that the school-leaving age should be raised gradually by one term a year for three years. If the Government were to do that in the period 1935–37, they would even out the supply of juvenile labour, they would prevent these fluctuations, and would assure that the leaving age would be raised at a moment when the local authorities would be ready for it; they would, too, avoid any violent fluctuations in the school population. The Government might say that that was too late for them, but in taking that decision, they have exposed themselves to these problems, which have to be actively dealt with. If I may make one criticism of the right hon. Gentle-
man, I would say that he is a little inclined in answer to questions, which are not meant to be unfriendly, to say, "You can leave it to the local education authorities. They are quite happy about it, and are getting along with their programmes." Of course they are; they have been getting along with them for the last year or two. They have been considering the problem for some time past, but these problems which I have been bringing forward are problems which require an active policy on the part of the right hon. Gentleman for a solution, and I hope that he will be able to tell us how he expects that he and the local education authorities will be able to surmount these difficulties.
I must say a word on the question of non-provided schools. I warmly endorse what was said by the right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean). We do not want to discuss here the 1902 Settlement, or the ethics or advantages or disadvantages of sectarian or nonsectarian teaching, but we have to deal with the problem especially of the rural areas. The situation is that as the law stands, the Government can compel children in a non-provided school to be transferred to another school of the same denomination. They can transfer compulsorily children at the age of 11 from one Church of England or Roman Catholic school to another Church of England or Roman Catholic school, but they have no power to require the non-provided school, which becomes a central school or senior school, to improve its accommodation to take senior children, or to provide practical instruction and so on. They have no power to compel the children from a non-provided school to go at the age of 11 to a new central council school, and no power to assist a non-provided school to enlarge its senior places. There are counties where 80 per cent. or more of the schools are non-provided. That may or may not be desirable; it is a matter of opinion, but it is the position at the moment. Here is the raising of the school leaving age only a year and a half off; what measure does the right hon. Gentleman propose to see that the children who are compelled to remain on in school are properly provided for?
The right hon. Gentleman is really in this dilemma. He has either to change the present law in the direction of com-
pelling children in non-provided schools to go to provided schools, or he has to face the fact that he is unable to assure the House that these children, though compelled to remain in school, will receive proper and adequate education. That is a dilemma on the horns of which I do not want to impale the right hon. Gentleman. It is quite clear that a solution must be found if the school leaving age is to be raised. I will say nothing as to the direction in which I think the solution can be found, but perhaps I may say that I do not think anybody in this House, and perhaps few outside it, can have had such a wide experience as I in the last 4½ years of the views on this subject of representatives of all sections of the Christian Church, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and the Free Churches, or a wider survey of the possibilities of agreement.
I do not think agreement will be facilitated by arguments in this House for and against, but I do think there is a possibility of agreement, if the right hon. Gentleman is able, actively, though informally in the first instance—I do not ask him to call a formal conference until he knows where he is—to try to seek it. I feel sure that if the Government came and asked for new powers necessary to provide, in the words of the right hon. Member for North Cornwall, for the interests of the children, it would not be refused those powers by the House, if there were agreement between those who are interested from the point of view of the Anglicans, the Roman Catholic Church and the Free Churches.

Mr. THURTLE: Also the teachers, I take it?

Lord E. PERCY: We must, as the hon. Member for North Cornwall said, look at this from the point of view of the individual child. When I am asked to put my trust in the local education authorities generally being able to work out programmes and so on, to be a good boy and not worry, I think of the schools in every part of this country that I have visited. I think of the child in the slum school at Liverpool in a grossly overcrowded area, and with no possibility of replacing the premises because of the Rent Restrictions Act, and the impossibility of finding a new site; of the
child in the small school in Westmorland, miles from any possibility of being able to be transferred to a central school. I am thinking of children in the areas of progressive local education authorities, and I can tell the right hon. Member for North Cornwall that it is not only un- progressive authorities with which you will have difficulties. I am thinking of progressive authorities like, say, Manchester or Durham.

Mr. OLIVER STANLEY: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman, when he speaks of Westmorland and goes on to speak of unprogressive authorities, whether he connects these two?

Lord E. PERCY: The hon. Member must not assume anything of the sort. I do not know any authority that I would trust more to face a difficult question than Westmorland. But I think of authorities like Manchester and Durham, which have only just come round to the idea of reorganisation; Manchester, which said spectacularly recently that it had not made up its mind; and Durham, which was opposed and has only just come round. I am thinking of children in schools in all these varying geographical conditions and varying standards of local administration. You have to think of all these children and provide an active policy which will cover all their cases. I am very much afraid of a policy which substitutes for that active consideration and that application to the individual needs of children in all sorts of diverse conditions, a policy of indiscriminate compulsion without forethought. I do not apply these words to the Government policy yet. I hope we shall have an assurance that theirs is not one of mere indiscriminate compulsion and that the right hon. Gentleman has ideas in his mind of how he will solve the difficult and complex problems which he has raised by this decision.

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Sir Charles Trevelyan): I know that there are a great many of my hon. Friends who are anxious to speak, but I think it is fitting that I should speak early, because I know what is exercising the minds of Members in all parts of the House. I am, fortunately, in this matter, not called upon for very much argument in general justification of raising the school age. In the past,
acute and strenuous opposition has always been shown to any such proposal. In this case, there may be wide differences as to date and to detail in this new experiment, but on the general proposal there is no great body of opinion which has shown itself to be opposed to it. The fact is that the party to which I belong made it perfectly clear, beyond any doubt whatever, that it was going to raise the school age if and when it obtained power in this country. What I found, and I am perfectly certain all my hon. Friends found, was that there was no substantial objection from any body of the working class whose children are going to benefit by it, on the perfectly understood and reiterated condition that maintenance allowances were going to accompany the raising of the age in order to meet the present poverty of so large a part of our population.
I want to say only one other general word. Only a very short Bill will be required for carrying through this change, but I want to be sure that the House feels how great a change it is going to be. One year more of school life to 400,000 more children is so big a thing that it is worth facing difficulties and spending money and taking risks. Here in our country, in spite of some shortcomings, we have evolved one of the best elementary school systems in the world, but at 14 we let nine out of 10 children go, just at the receptive age, just at the blossoming age, just at the age when fathers and mothers who have the means begin to be acutely interested in the education of their children. The waste of it all! In the present situation of our country, 400,000 more children go out to join the crowd grabbing for a pittance in a labour market where there are more than 1,000,000 unemployed. The folly of it!
I want the House to bear in mind that that is what is at the bottom of it all, and when we take the difficulties, which we know there are, we are going to get over them because of the big thing that we want to get done. At the same time that the country generally approves of the raising of the school age, it has become acutely conscious that a great deal of the teaching of older children in the elementary schools is not advanced enough or interesting enough or as valuable as it should be and ought to be for
widening their minds and moulding their futures.
5.0 p.m.
There has been a splendid outcry against the marking time of the older children. Some of my friends have been accustomed to gird at the Noble Lord the right hon. Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy), who has just spoken. Nobody coming into my position can fail to recognise what he has been trying to do. His effort to get the local authorities of the country to put forward thoughtful programmes for the reorganisation of the work throughout their schools was an effective administrative advance by which we are profiting. We are trying now to give all the children over 11 a real chance of advanced education. It is a new plan to make a break at 11. Of course, there is no magic about 11, but what it means is that you start to set a vigorous idea going in the minds of all the administrators of the country to get them to provide really effective higher education. I am going in a few minutes to give the House considerable reassurance as to the rapidity and zeal with which the local authorities are applying themselves to the task of reorganising education. But I want, first of all, to make one thing clear. I am not going to hold up the raising of the school age, because in some parts of the country the reorganisation is not going on as rapidly as it ought. I am not going to ask the House to hold up the raising of the school age, because for a year or two there may be gaps in some areas. I am perfectly certain that the position of hon. Members behind me, if not of the whole House, is that children are better in school than in industry. For boys and girls in their early teens a poor school is better than the best coal pit or the most sanitary kitchen. We are going to do our utmost to be ready for the change, but I do want to say that we must not allow pleas of imperfection to be an excuse for not acting.
I now go on to tell the House what as a matter of fact is happening. We are making this great national effort to give the children a better chance; to provide more schools in many places, more teachers in many places, and a better class of education for the older children in most places. It is a great deal to ask local authorities to do, but it is not too much. The Government have given
earnest of their belief that the local authorities can do it and will do it, by giving them the encouragement in building grants which we have done by raising the building grants from 20 to 50 per cent. How are the local authorities responding? Of course it is extraordinarily difficult to make generalisations for the whole country and over hundreds of authorities, but I have made very careful inquiries from the inspectors of my Board all over the country, and this is roughly what I am told; that already considerably more than half the local authorities of the country are providing programmes which are well sufficient to deal with the problem; they are providing enough places, and are providing over most of their area a reorganisation which gives a better chance to the older children.
I have reports here, and I will mention just a few places in order to show over how wide an area this preparation is extending. I am not trying to make my list exhaustive; these are only a few of those places which have made the best start and have practically got their arrangements ready already: Waltham-stow, Twickenham, Chesterfield, Keighley, Blackpool, Croydon, Leicestershire, Lancashire. Now this is a profoundly interesting fact about these places. Except one, where there happened to be a very few voluntary schools, there is complete understanding with most of the church schools in those areas, and they will come into the reorganisation. That is to say, in all those places which I have mentioned, good will has conquered the difficulties. I have here a statement which is made to me about Lancashire. There is very large co-operation in these schemes of reorganisation between the authority and the Church of England managers. In several cases the senior schools in the new schemes are to be Church of England schools, and in other cases the senior schools, whether Council or Church of England, draw their children from the Church of England and Council schools alike.
I am not telling the House that that is a settlement that has been arrived at by all local authorities throughout the country, but what I do say is that if in Lancashire, Leicestershire, Waltham-stow, Croydon and the other places I have mentioned the local authorities can get a settlement, with good will on their
part, good will on the part of the local clergy, and good will on the part of the local bishop, then they can do it in the rest of England. I myself have no doubt that the good feeling which is marking these adjustments is inspired to no small extent by the attitude of some of the leaders of the Church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury, in speaking the other day, said that:
The Church could, he thought, adapt some of their existing schools in the towns, and they could, with the encouragement of the education authorities, group together some of their country schools and equip one of them as a higher tops school, as the phrase went. In that and other ways they could make themselves a very real and, he hoped, eager-hearted partner with the local education authority.
I do not see why that spirit should not go on all over the country. Let it not be thought that I do not realise the problem which the right hon. Gentleman has raised. Of course, the dual system is a difficult system; but equally, of course, I cannot offer building grants for voluntary schools unless there is a very definite movement of agreement in the country. What happens to voluntary schools is an important part of the arrangement of future years; but I have been here long enough to remember the bitter and dreary controversies of a quarter of a century ago, and as far as I am concerned I shall do my best to keep education out of the Serbonian bog of religious controversy. That does not mean that we, as a nation, as time goes on cannot get some better settlement than we have got now. We are a nation of compromise; we know all about compromise and we have had a compromise for 25 years—a compromise in a sense.

Mr. HARRIS: On a point of Order. Mr. Speaker ruled two Amendments on the Paper out of order, and as I understood his ruling it was that subjects of religious controversy should not be discussed in this Debate.

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I apologise.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: On that point of Order. May I put it to you, Sir, that while Mr. Speaker did rule those two Amendments out of order, it was indicated that the subject matter of the difficulties inherent in the raising of the school age referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean), who moved the
Resolution, could be touched on by speakers as long as they did not raise any controversial question.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Robert Young): What Mr. Speaker ruled was that subjects of religious controversy must not enter into the discussion at all, and accordingly I must ask the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education not to raise such a question.

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I think the attitude of the Government is understood; I think it is clear; and I very much hope that any opportunity will be taken by those in authoritative positions in any section of this community to come and meet me and discuss the question. I have not very much more that I want to say, but I propose now to deal with the central point, if I may call it so, of the Resolution which has been brought before the House. The main demand of the Resolution is for the production of the Bill, and I think we all feel that it is a reasonable demand. It is not that there is any very great hurry for the actual passage of the Bill, if its passage is guaranteed in the course of the next 12 months or so, but it is important that local authorities should know what the legislation is going to be. It is quite true that some local authorities have been professing to believe that legislation is not going to be passed. There is a certain amount of unintelligent anticipation that there may not be the same Government in power in 1931. I want to make it quite clear that if the Labour Government continues, the school age is going to be raised, whatever the difficulties are; and I propose to introduce a Bill and print it before Christmas. It will be very short—I hope a Bill of only one Clause.
At the same time I shall make a statement on what the Government will propose as to maintenance grants. I am still discussing the matter with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but it is an integral part of our policy, and in view of the new charge on the local education authorities, the House may rely on a reasonable contribution from the Exchequer. I want now only to express the hope that as there is no great opposition to this Measure, whenever it comes, it will pass fairly easily. There are one or two reasons why the
House should look favourably upon it. First of all there is the fact—I may mention it as there are not many Scotsmen present—that we Englishmen are behind Scotland. Why should we be? Scotland to-morrow could by the fiat of the Secretary of State for Scotland raise the school age by a year. We ought to be in at least as good a position.

Lord E. PERCY: Does that mean that there is any intention that the Secretary of State for Scotland shall do that without any previous Debate in this House?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I did not suggest that. I was merely putting the general position which ought to make English people feel small as compared with Scotland?

Mr. COVE: May I put a rather important point to the right hon. Gentleman? Is it intended that the Bill shall give to the right hon. Gentleman the same powers as are now possessed by the Secretary of State for Scotland, that is to say, merely the power of fixing an appointed day?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: No, we are going to do a better thing; we are going to do it outright. Another factor is this: I do not want to lay too much stress on the question of getting children out of the labour market, but it is a factor, and necessarily a factor. If there are 400,000 children going into the labour market, and we remove them from the labour market and keep them in school, we are spending money far more wisely than we should do by paying money in unemployment benefit. I do not care whether someone says that those 400,000 children are keeping only 50,000 adults out of the labour market or whether they keep 200,000 adults out of the labour market. If it is the lower figure it is a good thing to do, and still more so if it is the higher figure. But really I think there is another reason: I do think that the country has, since the War, been disappointed in the progress which we have been able to make in education.
One of the most remarkable things that happened when the War was over was the way in which parents sent their children to school, trying to get them higher standards of education. The secondary schools were flooded, the parents were
disappointed, and the rush for higher education on the part of the parents began to stop, damped down by the lack of opportunity. I believe that anxiety is still there. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman the Noble Lord knows it as well as I do. When we go about opening schools we see the extraordinary keenness which exists among parents all over the country and the local pride in schools which is growing up. If only they are given the chance we are bound to go forward. I admit that there will be some authorities who are not completely and properly ready when the time comes, but would they be ready whenever the time came? The fact is, most authorities are trying, and trying hard, to do it, because the parents are interested and because the country at large wants this change.

Sir D. MACLEAN: There are one or two questions I should like to ask my right hon. Friend. First of all, I suppose I have no right to assume that my right hon. Friend will accept the Motion. Then, I should like to be clear on this point. Do I understand that the Government, when they introduce this Bill, say, within the next fortnight or 10 days, will lay before the House a fairly complete statement of the financial proposals in connection with the Bill? Those are most important, because unless the whole thing is properly financed no speeches or resolutions in this House, or keenness on the part of local authorities, will make the thing work. It is most important that the House should know to what it is committing local education authorities, and to what extent they are going to be covered. When this Bill is introduced, say within the next fortnight, there will be ample opportunity for a Debate, and in particular we wish to know the financial proposals of the Government.

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I said that I would introduce the Bill before Christmas, and that in doing so I would make a statement on the financial point, which is a very important point and which is really only the new point, of the maintenance grants.

Lord E. PERCY: When the right hon. Gentleman says he will introduce the Bill and make a statement, does he mean the Bill is to have its Second Reading—

Sir C. TREVELYAN: No.

Sir D. MACLEAN: —or that it will be debatable—

Sir C. TREVELYAN: I shall make an announcement. The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that the business of the House is already very crowded, and that we cannot have a new subject brought up for debate in Government time, but the Bill will be introduced and I shall make a statement with regard to that material question. As to the other points raised by the right hon. Gentleman, there is already a circular giving information on that.

Mr. ERNEST EVANS: Will the Bill be printed and circulated amongst Members of the House of Commons?

Sir C. TREVELYAN: Yes.

Mr. BEAUMONT: I would crave the indulgence which this House always accords to those addressing it for the first time. I have listened with great interest but with mixed feelings to the speech from the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education. While he told us a great many things which I had hardly hoped to hear from him to-day, there are certain points which I regret he failed to elucidate; notably, he hardly answered one of the questions addressed to him by the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy). As he told the House, he is fortunate in having a certain measure of agreement on the general principle of this Measure. I think the attitude of this party is probably best summed up in a few words written by the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings:
Everyone knows that it is good for most children to stay at school continuously until 15, provided the school gives them an education suited to their age and to the life they will have to lead.
I was delighted to notice that the right hon. Gentleman not only realised, as we knew that with his experience he must realise, the enormous difficulties of the task which he has taken upon himself, but also the fact that reorganisation is an essential part of the scheme. Certain questions occur to us on this side of the House. The first is, Why has the right hon. Gentleman found it necessary to confuse, to mix up, the two things of the organisation and the raising of the school age? Reorganisation was being
arranged for by the local authorities. It is perfectly true, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that practically all local authorities are doing their best to get out the programmes for which he asked by the 31st December, but they have been hurried, and the work has been made more difficult for them by the speed with which the right hon. Gentleman proposes to introduce this reform. It seems to us that it would have been better if he had allowed the reorganisation to go some of the way, anyhow, before he saw fit to complicate it by the raising of the school age.
Surely there can be only two reasons for that action. One has reference to the question of unemployment. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is much better that children should be in school than in industry, but when he talks of the iniquity of 400,000 children going from school into industry every year I would remind him that they will still go into industry, only after the school age has been raised it will be one year later. The same number of children will flow steadily into industry each year, only they will be a year older. The other possible reason is that the right hon. Gentleman could not wait. He said not another day must pass, so far as we can help it, before the school age is raised. That is a very laudable sentiment, but I suggest that it would have been better and wiser if he could have assured us that the children are getting the full benefit of the reorganisation before they are kept in their schools for a year longer, because no sane man wants the rural children, at any rate, to stay a day longer in the schools under rural organisation as it is at present.
I want to dwell for a few moments particularly on the rural side of education, as it is that with which I have had something to do. There has been talk of the Hadow Report, and I would claim the indulgence of the House to remind them of what that means in rural areas.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I understand that is one of the points which Mr. Speaker has ruled out of order.

Mr. BEAUMONT: I did not understand so, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.

HON. MEMBERS: Maiden speech!

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I know it is a maiden speech, but Mr. Speaker has ruled the Amendment out of order, and one of them deals with the Hadow Report. If the sectarian controversy is raised, that will be out of order.

Mr. ERNEST BROWN: Surely the Ruling which Mr. Speaker gave does not apply to the whole of the paragraphs of the Hadow Report, but only to those parts of the Report which are referred to in the Amendments on the Order Paper? I submit that there are many considerations in the Hadow Report which are not dealt with in the specific Amendments on the Order Paper which were ruled out by Mr. Speaker.

Mr. BEAUMONT: I did not propose to say anything with reference to the controversial points which Mr. Speaker has ruled out of order. I was only going to remind the House, that, in the rural areas, it is proposed that after the children have reached the age of 11 they shall be sent collected from the villages in central schools, where it is hoped that the best possible education will be given them in book-learning and, above all, a much better practical education. To reorganise on these lines in the country is much more difficult than it is in the towns. The education authority of which I have the honour to be a member have for the last two years devoted themselves seriously to this problem of reorganisation, and they will submit a programme to the right hon. Gentleman which I have every hope he will approve. I believe it will be a good programme, but I know it would have been a very much better programme if we had had five years and not two years in which to do it. There is this consideration in connection with rural reorganisation, that when you have built your central school in any one place, if it should prove unsuitable then, by reason of the expense, it will be practically impossible to move it anywhere else. Therefore, it is essential that the scheme should be thoroughly well thought out and arranged before the building is erected.
There are two other points which I wish to submit. The right hon. Gentleman gave us no information at all regarding teachers. If this reorganisation is to succeed, the teachers for these new schools must be the very best and most progressive which this country can produce.
I have not been able to find a complete estimate of the number of extra teachers which will be needed, but it has been stated as being anything from 10,000 downwards, and I see that in his Circular 1404 the right hon. Gentleman proposes to secure these additional teachers from the increased entrants into training colleges and by getting back some of the married teachers who have been or are to be dismissed or superannuated. We local education authorities had hoped that reorganisation, instead of giving us back some of the teachers who, in our opinion, are already too old, would give us an opportunity of getting rid of them—those who, by reason of age, are not in tune with modern ideas and modern conditions, and I do not believe this scheme can possibly be a success if it is to depend on teachers weary with years of work who are to come back for five years as a concession.
An answer which was given by the right hon. Gentleman to my Noble Friend stated that the annual increase of teachers in the training colleges was about 800. That would give us about 1,500 new teachers above the normal by 1931. It will need a great many more than that to make this scheme a success, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to doing something drastic to meet this need for the very best teachers we can produce. I may say that personally I should welcome it if the right hon. Gentleman could see his way, when he is spending more money in maintenance grants and one thing and another, to spend a little on drawing the best educated brains of this country into the teaching profession. With regard to the question of non-provided schools, I want to say straight away that I approach this question without any feeling, and almost without any interest, as to sectarian or non-sectarian education. I can imagine no more awful disaster than that subject cropping up again in connection with the proposed Bill. I only want to speak with regard to the organisation, and I want to put to the right hon. Gentleman a hypothetical case and to ask him how he would deal with it. There are, as he knows, all over England, what are known as single-school areas, that is to say, areas where there are now nothing but voluntary or non-provided schools. In these areas we have to set up central
schools. The counties cannot afford to build entirely new schools. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the two bodies are getting together in a most commendable way—

Mr. THURTLE: On a point of Order. I regret very much having to interrupt a maiden speech, but I do not want there to be any misunderstanding on this point. I submit that the hon. Member is now referring to precisely the same point to which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean) was referring when Mr. Speaker said that he ought not to discuss that point.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I was not in the House when Mr. Speaker referred to what was being said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall, but I thought that the hon. Member was just going to ask a question in relation to the number of schools on either side.

Mr. BEAUMONT: The only point that I wanted to make on that matter was as to how, with the best will in the world on both sides, the organisation is to be carried out in those areas. In my opinion, the best statement made on this matter during the Election was made in an address by the present Minister of Labour, and I should like to read it to the House, because it states the point of the whole matter as far as rural areas are concerned. The right hon. Lady said:
Labour would take immediate steps to raise the school-leaving age to 15, and would provide adequate allowances for maintenance where necessary. Our present system permits a grave waste of the intelligence and character, qualities upon which the nation will depend in the next generation. Labour will not tolerate the continued neglect of the village child. It will develop a system of primary and secondary education in the rural areas.
One word more, and I have finished. The rural areas have been neglected in the past as compared with the town areas. We in rural areas realise that this is our chance to get our children a square deal. I know and appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman is out to help us, but I do ask him to do everything in his power not to keep us in suspense when these difficulties face us, and to tell us as far as possible just how far we may go to ensure that the full advantage of this re-organisation is obtained for the rural
child. I want to close with an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman. We on this side of the House, together with hon. Members below the Gangway, are absolutely sincere in our desire to improve education. As I have already tried to indicate, we disapprove in many ways of the method of introduction of this reform, both as regards time and manner; but, since we are going to have a Bill now, we are just as anxious as the right hon. Gentleman that it should be the very best Bill possible. We cannot, unfortunately, always achieve unanimity as to details, and doubtless things will be said in the Debates on the Bill with which the right hon. Gentleman will disagree entirely. But I do ask him to look upon our suggestions and criticisms as made with an honest desire to help and to contribute something from our side to the great task which he has set himself, If he will do that, if he will look at our suggestions fairly and with an eye free from party bias, I am absolutely sure that we shall be able to help him very much in the great task of fulfilling the desire of all parties in the House to give our children in this country the very best education that is procurable with the means at our disposal.

Miss RATHBONE: The President of the Board of Education has told us that the financial provisions of the proposed Bill are now under discussion between himself and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He also reminded us that by far the most important part of the Bill, as regards financial liability, will be that concerned with maintenance allowances. I hope, therefore, that I shall be in order if I put before the House some considerations which I trust the right hon. Gentleman and the Chancellor of the Exchequer may regard favourably when they are preparing their proposals concerning maintenance allowances. Many of us have been thinking a good deal on the subject of the way in which the Government intend to fulfil their promise to provide
"maintenance allowances on an adequate scale,"
and
to make the necessary financial provision to ensure that the cost of such allowances shall be met from national funds.
I am quoting from "Labour and the Nation." But we have some fears that the
Government may yield to pressure which I know is likely to be put upon them from some quarters to introduce, in connection with maintenance allowances, the very principle which they have spent the last two days largely in repudiating in connection with widows pensions. We are anxious to know, therefore, on what scale the maintenance allowances are going to be, and whether they are going to be maintenance allowances for all the children included in the new year of schooling, or only for children whose parents suffer some sort of means test.
The objections to such a test have been very often alluded to from the Government side of the House, and sometimes from this side, in the course of the last few days. We have been told that a means test involves costly and elaborate investigations which are very odious to the recipients and often demoralising. Are the Government going to take the same stand when they deal with maintenance allowances in connection with the promised Bill? May I give my reasons very shortly for hoping that they are going to take the same stand? I suggest, first, that there is no need for a means test in regard to maintenance allowances, because the very fact that a parent has a child at an elementary school practically implies a means test. The well-to-do classes do not send their children to elementary schools, and even the moderately well-to-do rarely do so. I wonder how many Members of this House have children at elementary schools, and, if any have, whether the reason is anything but that they cannot afford to do otherwise. Perhaps some day the time will come when, as in the United States and in Holland and some other Continental countries, the child of a Cabinet Minister, a doctor, a lawyer, or a well-to-do merchant, will sit side by side with the child of a working man; but that day is far ahead of us, and it will not come, I believe, while the standards of equipment, staffing and structure of our elementary schools are what they are at present. Therefore, I suggest that we need no means test in relation to the parents of these children of 14 to 15 who are to enjoy this extra year of schooling. It may be said that there are degrees of poverty, and that, if resources are limited, we had better confine maintenance allowances to those whose need is the greatest. The answer is that, if
we attempt to introduce a means test, we are up against just the old dilemma that either the means test is put so high that the saving involved by it is negligible, or it is put so low that it causes great hardship and demoralisation.
Think of the machinery that would be involved in enforcing a means test on this new school population. An estimated number of 400,000 children has been mentioned. No parent not blessed with twins can have more than one child at a time between 14 and 15 years of age, so that that means 400,000 married couples. We were told that the cost of merely adding a few supplementary questions to the investigation which is already going to take place with regard to 500,000 elderly widows would be something like £50,000. That, however, would be a once-for-all expenditure, and the number would be diminishing, but this would mean an annual inquisition into the means of the parents of all the children who arrive at the age of 14 or 15. It would mean an inquisition, and, if it is to be of any use, a close inquisition, into the means of practically the whole working-class population as their children reach the stipulated age. It may be said that the maintenance allowance might be given to those who make application, thus diminishing the amount of investigation necessary. Yes, but what would be the result? It would be that the prouder and more scrupulous parents who were on the border-line would not make application, and that the less scrupulous would "wangle" their means somehow or other.
What sort of inquiry would be necessary? A very able paper was read before the Liberal Summer School by the wife of the hon. Member for Withington, Mrs. E. D. Simon, in which she put forward what I am sure was the very best plea that anyone could put forward in favour of a means test, from her experience on education committees, namely, that, if a means test were imposed, the money would go farther and more ample allowances would be given to those who now have less. The argument that she used was that it is being done already, that it is being done in Manchester in connection with the maintenance allowances given to children who receive scholarships at secondary schools; and she described the method thus:
The cases are all very carefully investigated. In addition to a calculation of the income of the family, after deduction of rent, account is taken of the size of the family, ages of the children and the number who contribute to the support of the family, nature of the occupations of the wage earners, i.e., whether it is work that necessitates a ' respectable ' appearance, whether pensionable or not, distance from home to work, and from home to school.
Is that the sort of inquiry to which every decent working man and woman who are the parents of a school child are going to be subjected in this country, in order to see, forsooth, whether the occupation of the wage-earner requires a black coat and a bowler or fustian and thick boots, and what are the relative costs of the two forms of raiment? On the other hand, if the investigation is a very simple one such as can easily be applied, taking no account of the size of the family, whether the work is regular or irregular, questions of transport, the nature of the occupation, and so forth, then the result is going to be most unjust. A man with £4 a week, with six children, having to pay 15s. or 16s. a week rent and tram fares backwards and forwards to his work, would be considerably worse off, and more in need of a maintenance allowance, than a man with £2 a week and one child, paying 8s. a week rent and living close to his work. Again, wages are a fluctuating quantity; wages, unfortunately, do not "stay put." What about such things as overtime, emoluments and tips? Who can assess things of that kind?
I wonder how many of those Members of this House who urge a means test in connection with widows' pensions have ever had experience of enforcing a means test. I have had that experience. During the War, my particular piece of war work was to report on claims to supplementary separation allowances and similar grants, which were based on the desire to bring the war-time incomes of serving men up to pre-War level. We had elaborate investigations, we had first-class workers, and this was the result. As time went on and as people found out that by simply evading this question and misrepresenting that, and persuading a son who was in the habit of giving a regular allowance to give it in the shape of a cash gift at Christmas they were getting the allowance, the standard
of truthfulness went down and down. Many people, I know, think that is a trivial consideration.
At the risk of being thought a prig and an adherent of that rather discredited school, the old-fashioned Charity Organisation Society, I would suggest that, after all, the greatest asset of this country is national character. Over and over again, I have been told by people who have been in such places as the South American Republics that the word of an Englishman is the very synonym of truthfulness. Do we mean to sap that kind of reputation by putting before members of the working class a strong temptation, if their need is great, to misinterpret their circumstances, because it is a strong temptation. Suppose Mrs. Smith's son Jack wants to claim a maintenance allowance and, her husband having just got a rise owing to his superior ability, his income is just beyond the point which entitles him to a maintenance allowance, and there are children suffering in health who want cod liver oil and summer holidays and she badly needs assistance, she is living in a crowded house in the centre of the city and wants to get on in the outskirts, even that 5s. a week, or whatever the maintenance allowance is, will just make the difference to get what she needs. Who is going to cast a stone at a parent who yields to that temptation? There is one prayer that every citizen in the country has a right to address to the State and the nation, "Lead us not into temptation."
There is one other consideration. There is a broad principle at stake. The Government is making a bigger decision than some of us realise when it decides between means test and no means test. To my mind the question is this. Are they, a Labour Government, going to add one item to that long series of semi-eleemosynary provisions we are intended to blunt the sharp edge of poverty and so to lessen the danger of rebellion of the victims of poverty, or are they going to set their feet firm upon a new path and accept the new principle that the children of the community are the concern, first and foremost of their parents, but are the concern of all of us, and that it is not fair to put upon the backs of parents the increasing burden involved
by our own steadily rising standard of education and maintenance.
For whose benefit are we giving this extra schooling? Is it in order that the better educated child shall be better able to help to maintain his parents in old age, with the incidental result that many of them will heave a sigh of relief when the parents pass out of existence and will be no longer an incubus upon the slender means of their sons and daughters, or is it in order that they may become more efficient producers and more effective competitors in the world markets and, still more, important citizens more capable than before of bearing the immense weight of responsibility which democracy places upon the shoulders of every man and woman in the country. If the latter is our object, shall we promote it by making still heavier that burden of parenthood of which one of the results is that, the more ambitious and the more far-sighted parents are, the more they are saying to themselves day after day, "We will not bring children into the world, or we will bring only one or two, if the result of bringing another into the world is merely that it pinches a bit of the money available for the food and clothing of its brothers and sisters."
I know the argument. That is all very well, we would all like to give maintenance allowances to all the children, but the cost is going to be too great. I believe Mrs. E. D. Simon, taking the children at 500,000, estimated the cost at £6,500,000. The right hon. Gentleman has not yet given us any estimate. Suppose the allowance were 5s. a week, are we to be told that is a sum that the country cannot afford to pay? Remember that we are committed to adequate maintenance allowances. The only question is whether there is going to be a means test, or a destitution test, or whatever you like to call it, and it comes very badly from any party in the House to say the country cannot afford £6,500,000 and cannot afford maintenance allowances except on a destitution basis. It comes very badly from those who sit on this side of the House and above the Gangway who have constituted themselves the defenders of Imperial responsibilities. Are we going to breed an Imperial race by encouraging the recruitment of the slum population? By all means give maintenance allowances to the slum
parents, Heaven knows they need them badly enough. But it is not the children in the slums who are going to maintain the traditions of an Imperial race, and it is becoming more and more a great danger that we are less and less recruiting our population from the more fortunate and more ambitious citizens and those who have high standards for their children. The argument comes badly from the members of the Liberal party, who urge the importance of initiative, enterprise and ability and the undesirability of discouraging thrift in any way. Are they going to promote those qualities by letting every working-class parent know that, if a man gets a rise, the value of it is going to be taken out of the wife's pocket? Is that the way to encourage thrift, enterprise and ability?
It comes worst of all from hon. Members opposite if they are to set the example of introducing this great new experiment on a destitution basis and if they are going to give as their reason that the nation cannot afford to do otherwise. I should like to read a few words from an article by the right hon. Gentleman opposite before he was a Minister, but when he must have known that high office was likely to be conferred upon him in a short time. He wrote:
Of all methods of spending the surplus wealth produced by the workers, immeasurably the most remunerative is to devote it to education. Life, knowledge, recuperative energy are added to it by the national capital. We shall not hesitate when the chance comes to us again to use the vast resources of rents and profits for the coming generation.
I trust that represents the views of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as the right hon. Gentleman.
In accordance with the custom of the House, may I offer my very warm congratulations to the hon. Member who preceded me, who made such an admirable maiden speech? We all recognise that we have in him a new contributor to the Debates of the House, who draws his experience from the best nursery for debates on education, practical administrative experience on a local authority, and who speaks for that great body of rural workers whose needs are too little known. We shall all look forward with great pleasure to his further contributions to our Debates.

Mr. OLDFIELD: I crave the indulgence of the House in addressing it for the first time. Before I approach the subject I should just like to say that my name was at the head of a list of names that were put to the Amendment that you, Sir, ruled out of order, but before I and the hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle), who also has an Amendment down, knew that you were going to rule our Amendments out of order we had decided, under the circumstances, to withdraw them. In the first place, we felt that the Amendment somewhat sidetracked the general purpose of the Debate, and, secondly, there was a fear in my mind of reviving old and unhappy memories of the days of long ago, not that my own memory extends back to those days. When the champions of 1902 were waving their dialectical swords in the air, I was gnashing my toothless gums in my nursery, and there are many Members in the House who had probably not arrived on the scene at all by 1902. But I can realise that for the older Members of the House these Debates might awaken memories which some of us do not share and might have a poignancy for them which we ourselves do not experience. There is not one of us who does not most heartily congratulate the Minister on his very courageous Measure for raising the school-leaving age. We welcome it as in some measure putting an end to that appalling waste of juvenile ability which we have now in the continual pouring in of children into perfectly blind-alley occupations.
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I do not imagine that this measure will entirely deal with the evil, but certainly it will very much mitigate it. We welcome it from the point of view of general moral control. The sudden relaxation of the control of school has a very disastrous psychological effect upon boys and girls of 14, for in practice at the age of 14 they move from a position of great restraint and subordination in the school to what is, in practice, very frequently a state of almost complete freedom. Above all, I would welcome it and congratulate the right hon. Gentleman in that this Measure is a great educational advance. I do not think there is any educational advance which has been made by the working men and women of this country which has not borne beneficent fruit both in the better
organisation and the more intelligent running of the workers' organisations in the country, and also in giving to them a better opportunity, through the increased educational facilities provided, of holding their own and getting for themselves a jester share of the good things of this world. For all those reasons, I would very much congratulate the right hon. Gentleman, and I fully see—as I think everybody in this House does see—the very great difficulties which the right hon. Gentleman must inevitably face on account of his courageous Measure and which any right hon. Gentleman in this House would have to face if he produced a similar Measure, and which the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) would have had to face had he, five years ago, produced the constructive progressive Measure which the right hon. Gentleman has now explained to the House.
The right hon. Gentleman says that he does not wish these children who are to receive an extra year's education to mark time. Hon. Gentlemen who have spoken have emphasised the danger of the rural child, owing to the peculiar difficulties of the case, being unable to get that advantage out of the Act which perhaps with some better organisation he would be able to derive. I feel the same anxiety for the slum child for other reasons. I cannot help that feeling, if we are to get the full educational value from the raising of the school-leaving age. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, I would do it anyway, but obviously we wish to get the best value possible. I cannot help feeling that the raising of the school age is going to entail a universal break at 11 or something corresponding to that, the adoption of the Hadow Report or something like it. I cannot help noticing that so far, the financial proposals only deal— and perhaps the difficulties of the situation justify it—with the help and the aid to be given to the schools of the Local Authorities in order that full value may be got out of the raising of the school-leaving age. More than 50 per cent. of the schools in the country are schools which are not owned by local authorities at all. A third of the children at present in our schools are in schools which are not owned by the local
authority. In Circular 1404 the right hon. Gentleman has admitted that in practice a very great burden is going to be placed upon local authorities which bring their schools up to the necessary efficiency so that full value may be got out of this reorganisation.
The right hon. Gentleman called the local authorities before him and very rightly, in my opinion, had a discussion with them, a discussion after he had decided upon the raising of the school-leaving age. Clearly that is not a matter for the local authorities to decide in principle; that is a matter of a Government pledge. After his decision he called the local authorities together to discuss financial matters, and in point of fact the local authorities have not done too badly. Local authorities have made quite a good deal with the right hon. Gentleman, but I only use that to show that where there is an admitted extra cost or extra burden to be put upon the local authority, there is in practice going to be a similar or corresponding burden placed upon those responsible for the non-provided schools. At present, owing to difficulties which hon. Members on all sides of the House perfectly well understand and appreciate, there are no financial considerations, as far as I can see, for dealing with this question of reorganising the non-provided schools.
The right hon. Gentleman dealt with the fact that a good deal of reorganisation and a good deal of accommodation had very fortunately been achieved between certain non-provided school authorities and certain local authorities. He gave a number of instances, but I have an uncomfortable feeling that these are not quite all the difficulties. The right hon. Gentleman, for instance, quoted Croydon. It is perfectly true that there has been a settlement which is a very satisfactory feature at Croydon, but there is also one feature which is not nearly as satisfactory. The settlement is not a complete settlement. It is a settlement into which the local authorities have not been able to induce the Roman Catholic schools.

Viscountess ASTOR: On a point of Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman while he is delivering a maiden speech, but in a maiden speech from this side of the House a right hon.
Gentleman was called to order when dealing with a subject which was outside the scope of the Motion. He was called to order for introducing exactly the same question which the hon. Gentleman has introduced.

Mr. SPEAKER: I am bound to point out to the hon. Member that if he goes outside the Ruling which I have laid down, I shall have to call him to order. The hon. Member is getting very near to the point which I ruled out of order.

Mr. OLDFIELD: I was dealing with the actual case given by the right hon. Gentleman. I should not have mentioned the question of Croydon at all had not the right hon. Gentleman dealt with or mentioned it. It was only an illustration to show that although financial satisfaction has been achieved partially in some places, there are certain interests which will find it very difficult under the present circumstances to make any kind of financial bargain at all. That is a factor which we must take into account when we consider the Government's proposal for raising the school-leaving age, for it is a very substantial difficulty. I do not propose to refer to it much more, except perhaps to make a reference to a suggestion which came from the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings. The Noble Lord suggested to the right hon. Gentleman that possibly the best way to get over these difficulties was for the right hon. Gentleman actively to work—I think those were his words—behind the scenes towards reaching some kind of settlement and agreement between all the parties concerned. In view of the attitude which the right hon. Gentleman has taken when he has answered questions upon this matter, I should like to add my opinion to that of the Noble Lord, for I feel that any other method of approach at this juncture would land us perilously near those horrible and bitter controversies which we, all of us, most anxiously seek to avoid. I agree with the Noble Lord and I would be perfectly satisfied if the right hon. Gentleman, in the first place behind the scenes—these things have to be done—and in the second place, openly, when he sees where he is, would take steps towards ameliorating the lot of those who are at present left out of the financial provisions for the raising of the school-
leaving age in the only non-controversial way in which the right hon. Gentleman can do it.
The alternatives are not very alluring. In these financial proposals, there is one line of action which the right hon. Gentleman can take if he wishes to get his reorganisation through and the raising of the school-leaving age to become effective at all. For Heaven's sake do not let us have bitter controversy, but there is something the right hon. Gentleman must do. One would be prepared to leave it at that, but if nothing is done thousands of children will be at a permanent and serious disadvantage, to put it mildly. Thousands of children will have their educational progress blocked all through the time. Thousands of children will have to languish year after year in top standards when really they should be getting on to something better. The whole machinery of educational advancement will be clogged if something is not done to meet this very pressing problem. I dread administrative pressure being used as an alternative to the agreement suggested by the Noble Lord. One has to think of the kind of people who are really going to be pressed. It is all very well to talk about pressing authorities and pressing organisations, but if those organisations are to be pressed it will probably be the very poorest and the very humblest people in the community who will be asked to pay the bill. At the present time the Roman Catholic schools, if they are to be put into proper order—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is travelling wide of the subject.

Mr. OLDFIELD: It is very difficult to make the point which I wish to make without treading upon the dangerous ground upon which practically everybody has, unfortunately overstepped, at some time, and I apologise if I have done so. Without making any further suggestion, I would like to leave the matter there. The attention of the right hon. Gentleman has been directed to a very important aspect of this matter of the raising of the school-leaving age. I want the right hon. Gentleman to feel and I want the House to feel that those of us who put our names to the Amendment which has been ruled out of order, and those of us who are concerned with certain diffi-
culties regarding the raising of the school-leaving age, are whole-heartedly in support of the right hon. Gentleman, and behind his policy, and it is only the desire that not only a section but all the children in the country shall get the full advantage of the Measure that has influenced us to bring forward this particular aspect of the case to-day, and to air the grievances to which I have drawn attention.

Mr. COWAN: I hold very strongly that hon. Members who take part in a discussion of this kind should confine what they have to say within the briefest possible compass of time. I therefore do not intend to ask the attention of the House for more than a few minutes. The Motion put forward deals with the educational policy of the Government. That policy must embrace Scottish education as well as the educational policy for England and Wales, and I understood that the Secretary of State for Scotland or the Under-Secretary of State was to be here in order to make some reply to what was said in regard to Scotland. I have listened not only with very great interest but with very great satisfaction to the speech made for the Board of Education by the right hon. Gentleman. We know now exactly what is the intention of the Government in regard to the school-leaving age, but, unfortunately, there is a qualifying phrase, namely, that if there is a Labour Government in power for a certain length of time this piece of legislation will undoubtedly be put through. It is satisfactory to note that statement, but I wish the Minister had gone further than merely to give a promise that the Bill would be printed and circulated before Christmas.
If, as he anticipates, it will be a matter largely non-controversial, then I think it would be all to the good if it were placed on the Statute Book at the earliest possible moment. The uncertainty which exists has been causing very considerable difficulty amongst the authorities in England, and I can assure the Minister, and through him the Government, that Scotland, so far as the educational authorities are concerned in the preparation of their schemes, is in a position of suspense. The authorities do not know exactly where they are, and very many of them who are inspired with the very best intentions and thoroughly in favour
of the proposed Measure are saying that they have no right to expend the money of the ratepayers in buildings or in other ways unless they have a definite assurance that this Act will be put into operation on the date that has been specified.
The problems of Scotland are practically the same as the problems in this country, but there is a consideration of primary importance in regard to Scotland. The Minister stated that so far as Scotland was concerned the matter was comparatively simple; that the Secretary of State for Scotland has merely to name the appointed day, and the thing comes into force. It is true that the Secretary of State for Scotland has such a power, but there is all the difference in the world between having a power and exercising that power. Therefore, I would join in the pertinent question which was put by the Noble Lord. I do not suppose that the Secretary of State for Scotland has gone out of the House in order to avoid the question, but I should have liked him or the Under-Secretary to be here in order to give a specific answer. We are told again and again that the Secretary of State for Scotland has simply to name the appointed day, and the thing is done. Is the Scottish Office contemplating putting into force its powers of fixing the appointed day, irrespective of whether legislation for England is passed or not? That is the question that we are asking in Scotland.
I am very glad that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland is now in his place. We are fortunate in our Under-Secretary of State because he has as large a knowledge of educational administration as any person I know. If I am not trespassing upon the rules and customs of the House, I would like to repeat the question which I have already put. We have been told that the Secretary of State for Scotland can by a single stroke of the pen fix the appointed day. We know that, but there is no use in having a power unless he is going to exercise that power. Is the Scottish Office contemplating, in regard to the school-leaving age in Scotland, making specific provision that the change shall come into operation from the 1st April, 1931, irrespective of what may happen in England before that day? There is a financial nexus between the two countries inasmuch as the money necessary
for the carrying out of this step in Scotland will only come when a similar sum has been expended in England. As the Under-Secretary of State knows and as the House knows, it is impossible for Scotland to take the steps now in contemplation unless they have first or at the same time been taken by England. I trust that the Under-Secretary will give a specific answer to that question.
This is an occasion on which we deal only with very broad issues, and not with details. We are all exercised as to what is to be the policy in regard to maintenance allowance, and whether it is to be a flat rate or is to be dependent upon some circumstances of poverty, or something of that kind. In regard to what was said by the hon. Member for the Combined Universities (Miss Rathbone) it was not justified to make reference to the Liberal party as being tied to one system of maintenance grants. The Liberal party, as far as I know, have not declared in favour of a flat rate nor of a differential rate. It may be that some individual members of the party have views of their own, but the Liberal party as a whole have expressed no opinion. We await the proposals of the Government, and will give them consideration.

Miss RATHBONE: I did not intend to imply that any of the three parties were committed to the principle of the destitution test, but I merely suggested that they should not so commit themselves.

Mr. COWAN: To make that suggestion was rather like putting evil into the child's head. So far as I know, they have no intention of doing anything of the kind. We have all the difficulties in Scotland that we have in England on this question. You can hardly expect the authorities to come forward with their schemes until they know that they can make preparation for a thing which is certain to come. The teaching profession in Scotland is whole-heartedly with the Government in this matter and are anxious to do everything possible in order to bring about an advance. They are ready even to go a good distance in the way of large classes, and are prepared to make sacrifices, but there are certain things that they cannot do. It is quite certain that if this Measure goes through, there will be required a very
large number of additional teachers. In Scotland there is quite a large percentage of unemployed teachers, and we cannot expect the teaching profession or the training colleges to come forward and to provide for increased staffs if there is not a certainty that the staffs will be needed. I thank the House for giving me an opportunity of stating the position of Scotland, and I hope that the Debate will allow of a few minutes for a reply from the Under-Secretary.

Mr. WESTWOOD: Can the hon. Member give us the number of unemployed teachers in Scotland who have got their two years' certificate endorsed by the Education Department?

Mr. COWAN: I have not the exact figures.

Mr. WESTWOOD: The hon. Member stated that there were many unemployed teachers.

Mr. COWAN: I simply stated that, according to the returns issued by the Scottish Education Department, and other statements which have been made, there is at the present time quite a large number of unemployed teachers in Scotland.

Mr. WESTWOOD: Unemployed students.

Mr. COWAN: No. Those who have completed their training, and are quite eligible for appointments.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Johnston): I understand that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education in England has given a very specific statement on behalf of the Government, that he proposes to introduce a Bill before Christmas and to make a statement thereon. The hon. Member asked me whether or not in Scotland it will be possible to go on with separate legislation in the event of the English Board of Education being unable to proceed with their legislation. The answer is the one which he gave himself, namely, that if this Government remains in office it will fulfil the pledge which the right hon. Gentleman has given, but if it does not remain in office it will be impossible for the Scottish Department to proceed with separate legislation.

Duchess of ATHOLL: In view of the short time at the disposal of the House to-day and the many important questions which have been raised in regard to English Education, I do not propose to raise the several important questions in regard to Scotland which I should very much have liked to bring forward; but I would like to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland whether he can give an assurance that before the Scottish Education Department names the appointed day for the raising of the school-leaving age, there will be a full opportunity given for discussing in the House this very important matter in regard to Scotland.

Mr. JOHNSTON: That is a question which ought to be put to the Secretary of State for Scotland or to the Prime Minister, through the usual channels, because it deals with the allocation of time, but I can say that as far as the Secretary of State for Scotland and myself are concerned, we should welcome the opportunity of discussing the educational position in Scotland at as early a date as possible.

Mr. COVE: I understand that it is the general desire of the House that those who intervene in this Debate should be very brief. I am pleased to meet the wishes of the House in that respect. It is easier to be brief because of the pronouncement of the President of the Board of Education, which has been received with general approbation on all sides of the House. I would, however, ask him to seriously consider whether he could not go a step further as a result of this Debate. The Bill, I understand, will be printed before Christmas, and he is to make a general statement upon the financial arrangements particularly those relating to family allowances. The agreement which seems to be shown in the House is a very strong reason why the Bill should be introduced and placed upon the Statute Book. I understand that the Noble Lord opposite has abandoned his policy—

Lord E. PERCY: The hon. Member must not understand that at all.

Mr. COVE: I am glad to have had that admission from the Noble Lord. As I understand it, we are now to expect opposition.

Viscountess ASTOR: Not from all of us.

Mr. COVE: This is very important. I should like to know what is the policy of the party opposite? If they have now abandoned the pronouncement of the Noble Lord, made a year or two ago, and agree that the school age should be raised, we have a stronger lever for urging that the Bill should be brought in and time provided for putting it upon the Statute Book. I congratulate the President of the Board of Education as far as he has gone, and, speaking on behalf of a large number of teachers, they will rejoice in the pronouncement he has made this afternoon. The teaching profession is looking to this Parliament to completely bridge the gap which now exists between the ages of 14 and 16, and as a profession we are prepared to see that gap bridged by raising the school age to 15 and lowering the insurance age to the school-leaving age, but what we are not prepared to agree to—and I say this very definitely—is to see a lowering of the insurance age a definite fact and the raising of the school age an uncertain fact. Our representatives on the Advisory Committee which is advising the Minister of Labour have agreed contingent upon the school age being raised to 15 to a lowering of the insurance age to 15, but it must be definitely understood, and I hope the President of the Board of Education will bear it in mind and acquaint the Minister of Labour, that we are not prepared to see a lowering of the insurance age unless we are definitely certain that the school age will be raised.
I should like to congratulate the President of the Board of Education on having to-day made a most important pronouncement so far as achieving equality in our educational system is concerned. An hon. Member opposite urged that reorganisation should have come first, and the Noble Lord himself seemed to suggest that we should first reorganise our schools and then, having reorganised the schools, we might, at some remote time, raise the school age. We on this side of the House hold that the very foundation stone of reorganisation is the raising of the school age, and that we cannot have effective reorganisation of our educational system unless you do raise
the school age. The raising of the school-leaving age will make the education given at the ages of 12 and 13 and 14 effective, but without the raising of the school age you will still have that marking of time in our school which we all deplore. I am glad the pronouncement has been made and I am anxious that the Bill should be on the Statute Book, because it is only after we have raised the school age that we shall be able, effectively, to carry on the fight for equality of opportunity in our educational system. We shall have a chance to get our system organised on a four years' course; a chance to see that our school buildings are made fit for secondary education, and a chance to fight for equality of classes within that extended system of education. In short, the right hon. Gentleman by bringing in this proposed Bill will take the biggest step forward that has been taken or forecasted in this Parliament for getting the Socialist policy of equality put into effect in this country.
I am glad to be able to support him and I doubt whether the Noble Lord opposite will really oppose it. I have noticed that the Noble Lord in his articles and speeches has made a great deal of play with what he called "the bulge." He has magnified the problem beyond all reason. He suggests that there will be a need for making this extra provision which will be no longer needed when a certain number of years have passed. It may look 400,000 or 500,000 all over the country, but if you think of the matter from the point of view of departments, divided into a number of departments, it means about 10 to 20 in each class, and that is quite as reasonable a way of looking at it as the angle of the Noble Lord. The bulk of the local authorities are anxious for this Bill, and the teachers desire it. The President of the Board of Education is asking for some sacrifices from the teachers. I can tell him that the teachers will be prepared to meet him in the most friendly and generous way as far as professional qualifications and status are concerned, provided that they are quite sure there will not be the creation of a large number of teachers without the need for them when the school age is raised. I beg the right hon. Gentleman to bring in his Bill, and test whether the party opposite does really oppose it. By selecting the
year 1931 the right hon. Gentleman is going to give a chance to the children of the men who have just returned from the War, that is the ex-service men. I urge him to bring forward his Bill, for which I think he will have the whole-hearted support of all sections in the House of Commons.

Lieut.-Colonel WINDSOR-CLIVE: I think the President of the Board of Education has rather minimised some of the difficulties in front of him in having fixed this particular date for the change, and I do not think he has given an adequate or complete reply to the questions which the Noble Lord put to him especially in regard to the difficulties in rural districts. The President of the Board gave us a list of the places where he said everything was going on well. I can quite understand that it was not an exhaustive list, but we may assume that it was a typical list, and I noticed that with one exception all the places he gave were thickly populated areas. I wonder if he realises the great difficulties there will be in the thinly populated rural areas, such as the county I have the honour to represent. There will be a great difficulty in finding the extra accommodation and a difficulty in finding the money. In the county of Shropshire it is estimated that £94,000 will have to be found from voluntary sources, and it is difficult to see how that sum of money can be found by April, 1931. There will be a difficulty in providing the necessary increase in the number of teachers. All these difficulties can be overcome if reasonable time is given. I believe the work can be done in Shropshire in about 4½ years time, but it cannot be done in 18 months time.
If this decision is adhered to it will be impossible to find accommodation in the reorganised schools for more than 40 per cent of the older children, and the remaining 60 per cent. will have to remain where they are, mostly in the small country schools. What is going to happen there? We know that in the small country schools it is often difficult to get the teaching done adequately owing to the different ages which already exist, and if another year is going to be added it will become an almost impossible task. I have discussed this question with some teachers in small country schools, and while they welcome this change, if proper
provision is made, they are appalled at having to carry it out under present conditions. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the decrease in the figures of unemployment. I am afraid it will be only a decrease on paper, because these children certainly will not be usefully employed. They will be only wasting their time and it does not necessarily follow men will be employed in their place. I hope it is possible for the President of the Board of Education to reconsider now the date at which he proposes to bring this change into force.

Mr. MUFF: I think it was quite by inadvertence that those who preceded me in this Debate failed to express their keen satisfaction with the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for South-Eastern Essex (Mr. Oldfield) and on their behalf, and on behalf of the House, I think I can say that we shall be delighted to listen to the hon. Member on future occasions. As a new Member myself, my excuse for intervening must be that up to a few days ago I belonged to one of the most progressive education authorities in the country. It was my home town which sent to this House W. E. Foster and from that man and from his personality we gained an educational impulse which we have never lost since. On many occasions that authority has anticipated the Board of Education. I have no wish to deprive the ex-President of the Board of Education of any credit and I join with the present Minister in congratulating the Noble Lord on what he tried to do to help us in our work. The Noble Lord only took a wrong turning on one occasion—he and the Noble Lady the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education. That was when the Noble Lord sent out Circular No. 1371, but on that occasion we recognised that whilst his was the voice, the hidden hand behind it was that of the lonely political pilgrim whose present habitat is in the glades of Epping Forest.
I wish to tell the House that we as an authority have put into operation the Hadow Report and we have now had] 6 months experience of it. As an act of faith we put that report into operation throughout an area of 300,000 inhabitants and we did so on one appointed day. We were told that we were making a mistake in doing so and that there would be grumblings from the teachers but the step has proved an undoubted success. We
asked the teaching staff if they had any special subjects which they would like to teach instead of taking part in the general teaching, and we were agreeably surprised at the response of our teachers and we feel intensely proud of them. It was also said in connection with our modern schools—our post-primary schools—that we would have trouble from the parents. We took these parents into our confidence and, as a result, in a few weeks we had little or no trouble. We were the first authority to institute free secondary education in this country and after the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education had announced the appointed day for raising the school age, 10 per cent. of the parents who had refused the acceptance of the free education certificate repented and said "We will send our children to the secondary school, not for a four-year course but for a five-year course." In the same way as an act of faith we tried in one of the central schools to have no agreement for the four-year course and two-thirds of the parents did not let us down.
We ask the President of the Board of Education to go on with the good work. In connection with an authority like ours we shall have our difficulties, but we have had 20 to 30 per cent. of our teaching staff coming forward and volunteering to take up handicrafts and other manual work, so that they will be ready for the right hon. Gentleman's appointed day. It is not our duty to give the child a bias to be either a bishop or a burglar, but it is the duty of an authority to equip modern schools adequately, and, so far, we have been able to do it. We shall need additional staff in 1931, but by taking the cream of the teachers who have retired, especially the women teachers, and, maybe, the married women teachers, we shall be able to make our choice and to get over the difficulty of what the Noble Lord has called the "bulge." We shall be able to surmount our difficulties, and we look forward to the future with every confidence. It was my duty up to a few days ago as chairman of a committee to be responsible for the buildings and equipment of all schools in the City of Bradford—about 120 schools, some provided and some non-provided. In every school we as a committee could provide decent equipment and see that the schools were painted, but if a child fell in the school yard and
was hurt, owing to the ill-repair of that yard, we could pay the doctor's bill for the child, but we had not power to repair the yard because it was called an "improvement" to do so. I say that indeed "the law is a has" if that sort of thing is going to continue. We as a committee could put a coat of whitewash upon the school conveniences, but we could not take steps to remove the smell arising from the unsanitary condition of those conveniences.
I suggest that in these and all other cases the child has to come first. That is why I have been so glad to listen to the statement of the President of the Board of Trade, and I look forward to that spirit of good will which is evident to-day being the characteristic note in this House in all our discussions affecting the citizens of the future. I believe that this House is not going to arouse the old spirit of intolerance and faction, but that we are going to combine to secure the realisation of the dream of that man whom some people called "Buckshot" Foster, but whose memory we treasure in Bradford as that of a great Minister of Education. We believe that his dream is going to come true in a national system of education, and that this new House of Commons is going to be the instrument to bring it about.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. HARRIS: The very eloquent appeal of the hon. Member for East Hull (Mr. Muff) will, I am sure, be re-echoed from all parts of the House. I believe this is a great day in the history of our national system of education and that the coming of what the hon. Member anticipates can be signalled by this discussion. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Northern Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean) is to be congratulated on having selected this subject. Had it not been for his initiative we should still have been in the dark about the policy of the Government. We were amazed that in the King's Speech there was no mention of this vital problem. Perhaps the pressure of Members in all parts of the House has strengthened the hands of the President of the Board of Education to dip into the slender purse of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In that case I am glad that our efforts have not been in vain. Part of the purpose of this Debate, however, is to get away from generalities and down to details. No one doubts the energy and
enthusiasm of the President of the Board of Education, and this is his life work, but, however benevolent and noble his intentions may be, as the law stands he is not able to run the education system of this country. He is at most the accelerator. The Noble Lord during his term of office did quite well for education, but he always acted as a brake. I hope his successor is going to put plenty of petrol into the machine, but it is the local authorities who run the machine. Theirs is the responsibility, and they have to carry out the work.
The first thing which we demand in our Resolution is "Produce the Bill." When the second part of the Session opened, I pressed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, then acting in the place of the Prime Minister, to produce the Bill, and he suggested that there was not time. Now we have the promise of the Bill—which alone justifies this Debate—but the Bill is not enough. We want an Act of Parliament, and as far as I am concerned I am prepared to go full steam ahead. I fear, however, that not all the local authorities are inspired with the same spirit. I believe the majority of them not only intend to work the proposals of the Government, but are getting ready to do so, and have passed resolutions in favour of a date selected by them. They are not, however, all inspired by the same spirit. I happen to represent, in two capacities, the London County Council, and no one will hesitate to pay a tribute to the work of the London County Council, which is a most progressive body. But we cannot get away from the fact that the London County Council with its great area, and its immense child population, is holding back. I have an interesting report here on the provision of teachers, and I may remark that the success of this scheme depends on the provision of the right class of teachers and their training. Nothing would be more disastrous than to make a false start, and nothing would bring about a false start more readily, than that the schools should be inadequately staffed or staffed with inefficient teachers. That is one of the serious problems. In an article in a monthly review Sir A. Selby-Bigge is very pessimistic. He writes:
It is therefore pretty clear that if the school-leaving age is raised as from 1st April, 1931, there is hound to be a great mess.
He is a distinguished permanent official, but I do not agree with him. The right hon. Gentleman must not, however, trust to luck. He must not keep everything secret and mysterious, but must produce his plans and put his cards on the Table. Here is a report of a conference of heads of the London Training Colleges, and this is what they say:
Until the legislation contemplated by His Majesty's Government has actually been passed it is impossible to do anything with a view to attracting students to the teaching profession. It is, therefore, decided not to endeavour to obtain students beyond the recognised accommodation.
That is a very serious statement. If the right hon. Gentleman does not get the co-operation of the local authorities he will fail. The first essential for success is to produce the Bill and then to make it the law of the land for all local authorities. That is why I hope that this Motion will be passed, as I believe it will, unanimously. It would be unfortunate if, in our zeal for this one phase, we were to give the impression that that was the only educational problem before the country. I had hoped that on this occasion the right hon. Gentleman would have given a lead on many other problems.
There is the financial side. One of the best speeches I have heard in this House came to-night from the hon. Lady who spoke on maintenance grants, but the right hon. Gentleman dismissed it airily as if it were a detail. It is a vital problem, a question of £ s. d. The first question is who is to find the money, whether the taxpayer or the ratepayer, whether through the Treasury or through the local authorities. The local authorities are entitled to know that because they have to foot the Bill and provide the machinery. The schemes ought to be elaborated, not in April, 1931, but now, so that local authorities can make their arrangements well ahead. There are all kinds of alternative proposals on this matter. There is the means test. Is the maintenance grant going to be universal or on the basis of being only applied in cases of special need? Is it going to be paid on the same scale throughout the country or at different rates in town and country? Money wages, though not real wages, are much higher in London than in a country village, and people would like to know
whether the figure is going to vary according to local conditions, or whether the Board is going to lay down one scale for England, Scotland and Wales. Those are matters we want to know, not at some distant date, but without further delay. There are other matters of importance. In the last Parliament we had many Debates on education, and on every occasion reference was made to nursery schools. The Act of 1918, our great charter of education, made special provision for nursery schools.

Mr. EDE: On a point of Order. May I draw attention to the terms of the Motion which deals with raising the school age and not with nursery schools?

Mr. SPEAKER: I think that, in the short time at our disposal, we should confine ourselves to the raising of the school age.

Mr. HARRIS: I did not intend to elaborate the point but only to say that, in our zeal for raising the age, we should not forget to lower it at the other end. We should not forget the advice of Sir George Newman that the development of these schools is vital to the health and well-being of the population. I should also like the right hon. Gentleman to give the country a lead on continuation schools. We had an interesting experiment in 1920, but it was inadequate and limited to certain areas. London was a really progressive authority. The experiment failed partly because of financial pressure and partly because it was not universal but piecemeal and led to all sorts of labour difficulties. Does the reorganisation under the Hadow Report exclude the possibility of the development of continuation schools? The matter is becoming more urgent, because we have just had a report from a National Advisory Committee recommending the lowering of the age for compulsory Unemployment Insurance. If you are going to insure young people between 14 and 16, you must at the same time make provision for their training and education.
That is what is being done abroad. In Germany they have their great education charter of 1918, but it is actually in operation while ours is largely at a deadlock. We are entitled to know the position of the Government in that direc-
tion. A false start now would be fatal for our industrial efficiency. This is the opportunity. We have a united House and this has ceased to be a party question. Let us make the scheme, not a half-hearted scheme, but a great educational reorganisation; not one-sided, not incomplete, not dealing with one problem only, but really facing the whole problem of national education on national lines—nursery schools, modern schools, the great grammar schools, continuation schools dealing with young people from 15 to 18. We could then build up a great national scheme so as to make sure that the democracy of the future will be fitted intellectually, mentally, morally, and physically for its responsibilities. The right hon. Gentleman will not succeed if he does not show courage, if he does not realise that the success of the scheme depends upon the co-operation of the local authorities, upon giving them a lead. I hope a lead will be given to the country to-night by the unanimous passing of the Motion now before the House.

Mr. O. STANLEY: During the last Parliament I heard, I believe, every speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman. I heard him impassioned, I heard him indignant and I heard him in sorrow. I never heard him to better advantage than to-day. I assure him that we on this side will not forget his generous references to the work of his predecessor. Having given him his meed of praise I shall now censure him. My right hon. Friend put two specific questions to him in his speech, but to neither of them did he return an answer. The first referred to the phrase, which he used in conversations with the local authorities, about emergency measures which he was going to adopt in dealing with the problem. The Noble Lord asked what they were, but he received no answer. The other question was as to whether the Minister had taken the cycle of juvenile unemployment into consideration in fixing the date for the raising of the school age—whether he had considered the date from the point of view of trying to level out the unemployment among juveniles.
Let me turn to a more specific point, namely, to secure the sympathy and assistance of the right hon. Gentleman for local authorities such as that in the county of Westmorland, which I repre
sent and to which I also belong—a very sparsely populated rural district which presents problems entirely of its own. I assure him that the local education authority there is absolutely loyal. I do not mean that some of us, if our personal opinions were consulted, would not have differed from him in the method and the time he has chosen. That, after all, has been decided, and it will be ratified by the House of Commons. It has become our task to see that the best is made of the decision of the House. The right hon. Gentleman, judging at least from what he says, is apt to approach this problem with a town mind. He does not appreciate the difference in the problem in an area such as ours. He used the phrase "grabbing for a wage pittance." That may be quite true of the boy or girl leaving school at 13 or 14 in a slum area of a great city, but it is entirely incorrect in an area like ours where in the schools we do not, to any large extent, even get the children of the farm labourer, but where the large proportion of the children are the children of the actual farmers and, on leaving school, go straight into employment on the farm of their own parents. They undertake work, which is not the soul-killing, dreary, monotonous work a child has who gets employment in towns, but which has some educational value.
I want the Minister to realise the difficulty that we shall be in. Whatever assistance he gives in the way of maintenance grants we cannot pretend that the agricultural community will not suffer an economic loss. That economic loss is bound to be unpopular unless one can convince them of the educational value which the children get out of this extra year and convince them that it more than compensates for the economic loss. It is not going to he nearly so difficult to convince the people in the large industrial areas where the children are largely unemployed or their unemployment anyhow is an undesirable one. It is going to be immensely more difficult in our area to convince the parents, and it is going to be immensely more difficult in our area to put that extra value into that extra year.
We have the problem of widely scattered districts, not only immense distances between the villages but immense distances between the houses which constitute these villages. We have got hilly country and lakes, which make communi-
cation difficult from one centre to another, and we have finally a climate which, to say the least, is a little more humid than the normal, which means that you run considerable risk when you transport children for long distances by motor vehicles. We are going to try and tackle that problem. We are going to do our level best to see that that year is well spent, but we shall need the assistance of the right hon. Gentleman, and there are one or two methods which can be adopted. There is the grouping of these schools, with a central school in each area, and we are going to meet there with a difficulty. In some of these areas which will be selected there will already exist a secondary school, but the school population in those areas will not be sufficient or may not be sufficient to support at the same time a central school and a secondary school. Therefore, it is most important, from the point of view of the arrangements we are going to make, that the right hon. Gentleman should define his intentions with regard to secondary schools at the same time that he makes his pronouncement on central schools.
I want to deal with one other point. We are going to be faced with one problem which is almost insoluble. There is a certain number of villages in my district which cannot come into any arrangement. They may be 12 miles from the nearest village, and they may be 20 miles from the nearest suitable centre to which the children, the "11-pluses," could be taken. What are we to do with a school under those circumstances? It is no good just leaving the children in for the extra year from 14 to 15, to sit there being taught by the same teacher who is teaching the others; and the idea of a peripatetic teacher who will go round from distant schools simply giving an hour's instruction to these children is not very satisfactory. You do not get the discipline, and you do not get the change at the age of 11, which is the whole basis both of the reorganisation and of the raising of the school-leaving age.
I am going to throw out a suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman, following on something which the hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris) mentioned. I do not pretend that we, as an education authority, have considered it, or that we should want to adopt it, even if the right hon. Gentleman would sanction it, but I would
ask him whether the Board will consider the possibility at least of substituting, in agricultural districts like this, where it is impossible to work a satisfactory system of education up to 15, some form of day continuation schools. It may make the problem much easier, it may enable scattered districts to be much more satisfactorily covered, and at the same time it may enable us to give the children a real advantage from this year of education, which at present I do not see how we are going to do in these isolated villages.
I wish to conclude, as I began, by assuring the right hon. Gentleman that our local education authority is going to tackle this task with determination. He must not think that because perhaps things like this take time, in difficult circumstances, it is because of a lack of good will, and I ask him to realise the special problem of these special areas and to give them sympathetic consideration and help in their task.

Mr. DENMAN: We, on this side, could not have wished for either a happier beginning or a happier close of the Debate upon this Motion, on which I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir D. Maclean). The House has shown a quite singular unanimity, and those of us who did not get to bed last night and were here till 8.20 this morning are appreciative of the difference of tone in the Debate. The difference between this side of the House and that on this question is really not one of principle at all. Apparently the whole House quite definitely is committed to the raising of the school-leaving age, and it is merely a question of the difficulties in the way. With the diagnosis given by the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Stanley) of the difficulties of that county, I am in infinite sympathy. We are neighbours, and we in Cumberland have identical difficulties. Perhaps I have more practical knowledge of the working of the day school than has the last speaker, and I am cheered from my experience of our own school by the fact that in the old days that school used to contain scholars up to 17, in the days before compulsory education, when they came because they wanted to, and I am sure that in these rural areas you have a potential demand for education if you give them the right thing. I am equally sure that we should
like our children to go on only to the age of 14 in the rural schools if the education between then and 15 was merely to be conducted on exactly the same lines. That is quite obvious, and, of course, the problem is a large one for the Ministry of Education to solve.
I am indebted to you, Mr. Speaker, for preserving this Debate from its great snare. Obviously, in every quarter of the House, we are determined if we can to keep the cause of education free from the one great peril to which it is subject, and I hope we may go out from this Debate with a very clear message in one matter that affects the finance very intimately, the finance of the building grants. It is obvious that the Government are not prepared to alter the principle upon which building grants are allocated, and it is equally clear that it is quite useless for any body of outside interests to think that they, can get an Amendment into a Bill in this House—

Lord E. PERCY: On a point of Order. May I suggest that this is the very point which we have carefully avoided? I hope the hon. Gentleman is not going to make the very controversial statement which he seemed about to make.

Mr. SPEAKER: I think we had better keep away from that subject till 7.30.

Mr. DENMAN: My observation was merely to enforce what I think we are all agreed upon, namely, that there must be agreement outside this House before the question of building grants can be reopened and brought to any fresh stage. We all of us want to avoid that question. We all know that when we gather together here, raising denominational issues, there certainly the devil is in the midst of us. We all know that the devil is very resourceful in using all-night sittings and other devices, but the House is determined to avoid that kind of thing, and we all support the right hon. Gentleman in proceeding with the raising of the school age and in urging him to introduce his Bill as rapidly as he can, so that we can get on with the practical details.

Mr. HOPKIN: We have heard a great deal in this Debate about England and Scotland, but I think it is time to ask three questions on Wales. The first question I would ask my right hon. Friend
is this: How are these central schools going to affect the secondary schools in Wales? My second question is this: Is he prepared to advance any aid to rural districts such as Carmarthenshire, where they will have to build a large number of schools and, even after the schools are built, will have to spend a great deal of money to transfer the children from the villages into the central schools? My third question is this: How can we hope to have central schools built in the counties when we have the differential system of rating?

Mr. EDE: I only desire to make two points, which must perforce be very brief. The first is with regard to the point made by the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy), as to the problem of the fluctuation of juvenile employment due to the raising of the school-leaving age. One of the great reasons why I support this Measure is that by it we dam the flow of that employment into the market for at least one year, and it seems to me that in the present state of the market that is a perfectly sound line to take. Secondly, by keeping the big bulge of which he is so much afraid inside the school, we give to the maximum number of children that our generation will ever see in school the advantage of a year of extended education, and to my mind that in itself is a tremendous justification for the course which my right hon. Friend has taken.
The other point that I wish to make is this: I am one of the few Members of this House who heard the Debates of 1902, because I heard them, certainly not from the Floor, but from another part of the House. I heard my right hon. Friend then tell the House that we had the worst educated peasantry in Europe, and I heard from the benches opposite Mr. Bryce, Sir Charles Dilke, and other giants of those days who dwelt in that part of the land. Then, on that afternoon too, I heard a speech from immediately behind the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings, a speech by Mr. Haldane, as he then was, in which he said that the great thing in that Bill was its establishment of a municipal secondary education system. That was the great thing in the Act of 1902. The great thing in my right hon. Friend's speech this afternoon has been his declaration that every child over 11 is to have a full higher education.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House urges the Government to bring forward without delay the details of its scheme for raising the school age, especially the financial proposals connected therewith, so that local education authorities may know what their obligations are likely to be; and further urges that any changes in the existing law that require legislation shall at once be put in the form of a Bill and presented to this House.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. ANEURIN BEVAN: I beg to move,
That, in the opinion of this House, inquiry should be instituted into the desirability of so amending the Standing Orders relating to Private Business as to facilitate and shorten the proceedings on legislation promoted by local authorities and to lessen the heavy costs now incurred.
In the circumstances, the House will permit me to ask for its indulgence on two grounds. The first is that I am introducing a subject which can hardly be described as popular, and, in the second place, I am introducing it in an atmosphere which I am afraid is not too favourable to the subject. Indeed, after an all-night sitting, I fear that hon. and right hon. Members will find it difficult to give me the attention that I think this important subject deserves. It would perhaps have been better if the Mover of this Motion were someone with more experience of this House and of work on a local legislation committee, and who could consequently give to the consideration of this subject the weight and the substance which the importance of it demands. I will do my best to direct the attention of the House to one or two matters to which I hope they will give their consideration. I am asking that an inquiry should be made into the Standing Orders, not in regard to the promotion of private legislation, but only into the simplification and amendment of the Standing Orders where they apply to local authorities. I do not desire to ask for an inquiry into the simplification of the procedure for any other Bills except those promoted by local authorities, and the reason for the distinction must be obvious.
A local authority comes to Parliament for powers under the pressure of public need. The citizens of their district arrive at a conclusion that for the purposes of public administration, additional powers are required, and they decide to apply to Parliament for them. Private persons apply for powers generally for the purpose of making profit, and I do not desire to facilitate gentlemen or organisations or corporations who wish to obtain Parliamentary powers for the purposes of making profit. I do not suggest for a moment that these undertakings are socially undesirable, but they must weigh up the cost before they attempt to apply for powers, and they must have made up their minds that the expense of obtaining Parliamentary powers would be justified by the profits of the undertaking which it is desired to promote. Local authorities, however, are in a much different position. They decide to ask for Parliamentary powers, not for the purpose of exploiting any section of the community or any service whatever, but under pressure of urgent public need. It will be generally admitted that it is highly desirable that local authorities should not find it too difficult to obtain from Parliament those powers which are necessary in order that they may discharge their obligations to their people.
Local authorities have been confronted by considerable difficulties in the course of the last half century. In the beginning of the 19th century, most of the legislation obtained from the House of Commons was by private persons for the purposes of profit exploitation, but recently most of the work which has been done by local legislation committees has been to consider applications by local authorities for extended powers. A view may be expressed in the House, and held quite reasonably, that it is not a good thing to enable local authorities to get powers more easily. It is easy to see the reasons which would lead to a conclusion of that kind, but I do not share it. Some hon. Members may think that municipal authorities are making too much progress in that direction, and they hold that we ought to put all the obstructions that we can in the way of their receiving additional powers. We on these benches take a different view, and we think that local authorities ought to find it easier, and not more difficult,
to obtain Parliamentary powers for the purposes which they have in mind. I am going to assume that there is common ground that, if a local authority finds it necessary to apply to Parliament for additional powers, the mode of procedure adopted by Parliament in conferring those powers should be as simple, speedy and inexpensive as possible.
Parliament is in the first instance largely responsible for many of the difficulties under which local authorities suffer. Very often they have to discharge many duties on the initiative of Parliament. The Lord Privy Seal, in answer to a question, stated that, as a consequence of the schemes which he has sanctioned to local authorities under pressure from Parliament, 30 Bills would have to be submitted to the House before those schemes could be carried out. It appears to me, to put it in the most humble terms, to be stupid in the extreme that Parliament should impose obligations upon local authorities, and should ask the local authorities to accelerate their schemes, and that local authorities should find it necessary to come to Parliament to ask for powers to do what Parliament has asked them to do. By making them come to Parliament through a labyrinth and mass of Standing Orders, and by the most difficult and devious means which it is possible to contrive, Parliament makes it expensive to the local authorities to get these powers; and there is evolved a machinery so cumbrous and slow that many authorities are frightened of approaching Parliament at all. If Parliament desires local authorities to undertake the obligations that it has imposed on them, it should at least find some means of enabling local authorities to obtain their powers as easily as possible.
There is another aspect of the matter at which I should like the House to look for a moment. The local authorities are the first to be exposed to changes in social conditions. It has been laid down as a principle for our constitution that it is not rigid and fixed, but rather that it is elastic and responsive to changes, and although the changes and responses are slow, they are nevertheless made under pressure of circumstances. What we claim as a merit and a virtue in the national constitution, we deny to local
authorities, yet the local authorities are first exposed to any changes in the constitution. Our industrial population is migratory; it is moving over this country as quickly, and in as large numbers as it did in the days of the Industrial Revolution. Large areas of our country are becoming denuded, and areas which were industrially prosperous are now finding it difficult to maintain their populations, which are moving to other parts of the country.
It is well known that there is an industrial movement towards the south of England, so that areas which were rural are becoming industrial, and industrial areas are becoming semi-rural. Local authorities, however, find their boundaries rigidly fixed, and they are unable to adapt themselves to the changed circumstances without coming to Parliament for powers. Local authorities accumulate vast problems and obligations before they are able to come for those powers, and often these are so long delayed that the authorities are unable to obtain full advantage from them. It should be a cardinal principle of our administration that when there are changes in the conditions of the areas of local authorities, or when the boundaries of their areas are found to be too circumscribed, or when within their boundaries there are developing certain social services which can properly be carried on by alliances with other authorities, these local authorities should be able to obtain their powers from Parliament inexpensively and quickly in order to adapt themselves to these conditions.
I submit that there is in general terms an even more important ground why local authorities should be encouraged to apply for powers. Local administration is a political laboratory. Experiments in legislation are being carried out by local authorities every day. Important departures in public administration are made, and new ideas are put into operation, and very often it has been discovered that the small powers which local authorities have obtained from Parliament have become the basis of national legislation. Local authorities have pointed the way in many instances to what is desirable legislation for the country as a whole, and if we are to have new springs of inspiration for legislation, if we are to have the data, the information and the statistics which are neces-
sary to enable us to legislate properly in this House, the local authorities should be encouraged to ask for powers.
Far from stultifying the local authorities, far from making it more difficult for them to obtain powers, it is fundamental for this country, if we are to legislate properly, that local authorities should be encouraged to experiment in legislation, so that the benefits of that experimentation may be used to the advantage of the country as a whole. Members who have served on local legislation committees have told me that it has been found on a number of occasions that local authorities have applied for powers which, in the course of a few months, have become so obviously desirable in the eyes of the Department concerned, that representations have been made to Parliament for those powers to be generally conferred.
Our difficulties might, to a large extent, be simplified if Parliament could find time to follow up private legislation more quickly by general adoptive Acts. The last Public Health Act was in 1925, and many of the small powers which local authorities have obtained were embodied in that legislation for local authorities as a whole in an adoptive form. Very often local authorities have to come for powers because the following-up legislation of a general kind is too long in coming, and it might be that, if it be possible for us to expedite those general Acts, we might minimise to a large extent the expense incurred by local authorities in obtaining legislation.
I do not desire to dwell too long upon the general aspects of this matter, because I know there is upon the Order Paper a Measure which prohibits me from discussing local legislation in particular or the merits of conferring larger powers on local authorities. We on these benches who have had some experience of local administration believe that local authorities are, to a very large extent, the most important part of our constitution, and larger and wider powers are being imposed on them every day. Local authorities ought not, therefore, to be treated by the House of Commons as persons to be robbed and exploited, as enemies to be trapped in the maze of Standing Orders, but rather as partners in legislation and administration, and helped by Parliament as far as possible. As the Standing Orders are now, they
read like a conspiracy against the local authorities, as though some malignant man had been sitting down to think of all the items on which a guinea could be placed, to mulct the local authorities more and more at every stage of the proceedings in obtaining powers. There has been no inquiry into this question, I understand, since 1902, and in that year certain recommendations were made which have not been adopted. That is a very long time in these days of rapid social and legislative changes and, if only on this ground of time, a case could be made out for an inquiry. I suppose one could accept it almost as axiomatic that if orders have lived so long there must be something wrong with them, and I might, without undue frivolity, submit that on this ground there is reason for inquiry.
Local authorities have themselves made representations to Parliament and to the Departments asking for some remedy to be found for their present difficulty. Last year 50 local authorities passed resolutions calling upon the Government to simplify the methods of procedure when local authorities desire to extend their boundaries, acquire undertakings for municipal purposes or obtain Acts and orders of an unopposed nature for any purposes whatever, and to reduce the cost thereof. The Chambers of Commerce, at the instigation of the Birkenhead Chamber, in 1927, carried a resolution protesting against the charges involved in promoting legislation. The private Bill when it reaches this House goes through the same procedure as public business. It is not short-circuited and does not find its way any more quickly than public business, but is subject to all the examination, microscopic in detail, to which public business itself is subjected. Parliament treats it as though it had not been examined in any other place, although all who have served on local authorities know that before the authority makes up its mind to ask for powers there is a long, wearisome, heated examination of every proposal, committees are appointed and men of experience who have served on local governing bodies for many years sit on the proposals. Very often the local authority decides to postpone applications for powers until it can get as many applications as possible into one Bill and make an omnibus application. Yet the House
of Commons treats the subject as though it were brought forward by some tyro or had come straight from a Minister or a Department, instead of carrying with it the accumulated wisdom of a large number of local administrators.
I have been in this House a very short space of time, but a member of a local authority for a much longer time, and I must say, with all humility, that I have not seen any more experience or greater wisdom displayed here than I have seen on parish councils. I do not see any reason for supposing that Members of the House of Commons have such wisdom that they can sit in austere judgment on the members of a local authority. The last few days have shown, indeed, that Parliament is able to give so little examination and consideration to many important matters that it ought to discover some way of relieving itself of the obligation of considering these questions. We are faced with a grave constitutional position. Students of Parliamentary proceedings have said that one of the gravest criticisms to be made against the procedure in this House is that Members are expected to be Solons with infinite wisdom, expert authorities on variegated subjects, and also, even if they were as wise as they ought to be to give the attention which should be given to all the subjects brought before the House, they would have to live longer lives than any of us can hope to live. If we are to exempt the House from that criticism and apply our time to more important matters of legislation we ought to improve these Standing Orders and relieve our Members from sitting on proposals which have had the experience of local authorities. [An HON. MEMBER: "And Parliament!"] Yes, and Parliament. The sooner we do that the sooner we shall have time for more important matters.
Private business comes before a very important Committee of the House, so important that Standing Orders lay it down under very grave penalty that they have to be specially exempted. For no other Committees have such stringent Regulations been laid down as apply to Local Legislation Committees. Only for sickness or by special permission from the
Speaker are they exempted from attendance. It has been recognised that local authorities find it so expensive to come to these Committees, and delays are so costly, that Members of Parliament are to be sent along even under duress to reduce the inconvenience to local authorities as much as possible. In the Committees, I am told by Members who have served on them, it is possible for an unopposed Bill to be from four to five days, and for an opposed Bill to be for seven or eight days. A Bill has been known to be before the Committee of this House and in the other place for 18 days, and during that time costs have been accumulating. Each day the Bill is before the Committee, £5 has to be paid. I should be the last person to suggest a conspiracy, but there is a possibility that those in whose hands these authorities are placed, Parliamentary agents and Members of the Parliamentary Bar, are not sufficiently interested in speeding up the business. I would not like to suggest to any members of the profession in this House that they have a vested interest in slowing it down, but I may suggest, without hurting the feelings of anyone, that there is no incentive to speed it up. They are almost as long-winded in presenting their cases as I am in moving this Resolution.
It has been estimated that an unopposed Bill in this House, simply a formal application for powers, can cost between £600 and £700. There is no opposition; it simply has to come and find its way through the maze of the Standing Orders to the Committee, leave the Committee and go to the House of Lords, and then receive the Royal Assent. Opposed Bills will cost on an average, I am told, £2,000. I have in mind the case of a local authority in my own district that had to enter into combination with another local authority in order to run omnibuses. It applied for a Provisional Order and opposed a small Bill in this House that impinged on its privileges. For that it had to find £12,740. I submit that the ratepayers ought not to be mulcted in damages of this kind in obtaining powers from this House. No matter how wealthy, important, or influential the vested interest that may have arisen, the time has arrived when the local authorities ought to be able to obtain powers without
this ambush. One could give many illustrations of the cost of obtaining these powers by local authorities, but I find local authorities very reticent indeed on that matter. It is sometimes very difficult to obtain information from them, and I suspect that the difficulty exists because even they are ashamed of the money which has been extracted from them in obtaining the powers for which they have applied. I submit that there is no need for me to pile up evidence as to the cost; that is very well known.
There is the question of delay. Parliamentary agents are now engaged in preparing Bills to be submitted to this House before the 17th December next. No Bill can be submitted after that date. They must all be submitted before then, and very long advertisements must be inserted in local journals informing the ratepayers, who already know about it, that application is going to be made to Parliament for powers. In many instances a ballot has to be taken, and in other instances a meeting of ratepayers has to be held, to obtain permission to apply to Parliament for powers. In addition to that, the agent acting on behalf of the local authority has to advertise in local journals, and has to insert in those journals most detailed information as to the powers which are to be sought. Then after the 17th December until the following 12th February, an opportunity is given to people with interests to oppose those measures, and between the time when the Parliamentary agent is called in until the 12th February of the following year the local authority is in the hands of the Parliamentary agent, and often heavy fees have to be paid and counsel have to be employed in order to examine in time the objections which are brought in before the 12th February; and counsel invariably employ two junior counsel because the congestion of Parliamentary business is such that the same counsel may be employed in the promotion of or opposition to several Bills, and his fees must be paid although he may make no appearance at all in the matters in which he is engaged.
A recital of these conditions is, I suggest, enough to move the indignation of any persons interested in public adminis-
tration. I notice that as part of the training of private Members of this House many of us have served an apprenticeship in local authorities before we came here, and we know the difficulties which are experienced. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will agree that there are very few matters to which one could call attention which are more important than this.
After oppositions have been filed and after the opposing papers have been presented, the Committee, after the 12th February, begins to sit. Then after the Bill has left this House it has to go through the same procedure in the other place, and there the same fees, or more, are charged. The local authority may be able to receive the Royal Assent in the late summer; but it often happens that the House is unable to find time to complete the business of local authorities during the early Session, and in that case the consideration of these Bills is postponed to the autumn. In the meantime, counsel have to be retained, and the whole of the business is hung up, and because of circumstances for which the local authority is not responsible, the expenses are being added to all the time.
I do not want to delay the House much longer by a mere recital of the conditions and the difficulties, with which hon. Members are familiar, but I do want to suggest that there are one or two directions in which it is possible for us to remedy this condition of affairs. I have asked for an inquiry, and I do hope and trust that the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, who is going to reply, will find it possible to give me the Inquiry for which I am asking. It is a very modest request. Inquiries are sometimes as plentiful as blackberries in autumn, but on this matter I would suggest that an Inquiry is necessary, because the whole affair is very complicated. The alteration of one Standing Order very often has important repercussions on all other Standing Orders, and only an Inquiry can provide the House with the remedies which would be most effective in saving time. May I be allowed to suggest that the Committee of Inquiry, if it is appointed, might give its attention to one or two aspects of the matter.
This is not the first time that this matter has been raised in the House. I think, in 1922, the Chairman of Ways and Means at that time proposed certain Amendments which were accepted, and made a number of suggestions which were never embodied at all in Standing Orders. Also I am told that in 1916 the Reconstruction Committee made certain suggestions, some of which have been embodied in Standing Orders, but a number of which have never received attention at all, so this matter has from time to time been under the consideration of the Department and of those hon. Members of the House who have had experience of its difficulties. May I suggest that one of the first things that should be done is to abolish the House of Commons fees for local authorities. I do not see why a Municipal Authority should have to pay fees for obtaining from Parliament powers which are obviously desirable. I cannot think of any reason which would apply to local authorities. I can think of a reason why fees are applied to the operations of private persons other than local authorities who want powers, because private persons might apply for powers frivolously, and it is necessary for obstacles to be raised against that frivolity; the time of hon. Members of this House cannot be wasted upon what might be merely an advertisement on the part of the individual applying for powers; but to charge fees to a local authority with the sanction of public convenience and the needs of public administration behind it appears to be indefensible.
I do not see why a local authority should find it necessary to employ a Parliamentary agent. I can understand it as things are now; a Parliamentary agent is very necessary in order to find some degree of clarity in these very complicated Standing Orders, hut I do not see any reason for having vested interests in complications. The proper body to provide the local authorities with information and with guidance in making applications to the Houses of Parliament would be the appropriate Government Department. We have Law Officers, who are expert in the procedure, and they should, in my judgment, have placed upon them the obligation to assist local authorities in making applications to Parliament for powers. I want to be very
carefully guarded here; I do not for a moment suggest that the appropriate Government Department should have power to alter the application of a local authority. The very last thing that should happen is that a Department should put itself between a local authority and the Legislature. This House is the seat and the source of authority, and we ought to protect local authorities against a Department being able to put itself in the way between Parliament and a local authority; but the Department might very well, under simplified Standing Orders, assist a local authority in putting its legislation in proper form, and in complying with the Standing Orders of the House, and might provide any other assistance which might be necessary to secure the powers for which the local authority asks.
Then, again—and here what I say must be considered tentative, because I know I shall be accused of speaking without my book—may I be allowed to suggest that the Local Legislation Committee should be less a quasi-judicial body and more of an inquiry—that it should be less a body to sit to listen to evidence and more a body to elicit evidence. What occurs to me is that instead of sitting down and listening, as a Court of Law listens, to representations from the promoters and the opponents of a Bill, it might itself adopt the role of assisting the promoters or opponents of a Bill to make known their views before the committee. At the moment they act more or less as a judicial body, listening to the evidence, and giving very little assistance in eliciting the relevant facts. These are merely tentative proposals. I am not suggesting that they should at once be adopted, and I am not suggesting that they will stand examination by more experienced persons, but I am suggesting that if they are adopted they will very largely expedite the procedure and reduce the cost of promoting legislation in this House.
Before I sit down may I be allowed to say one word about an instrument which has been suggested, and which is very largely in use: I mean the Provisional Order? There are certain persons who think that the way to get over this constitutional difficulty is to make greater use of the Provisional Order. I do not subscribe to that view, because I think that this House ought to put all the
obstacles possible in the way of any increase of the power of Whitehall over local authorities. I think that it is undesirable in the extreme that Government Departments should be able to give to or withhold from local authorities powers for which they apply. Many Acts now contain Sections which confer upon a Minister power to give to local authorities or to withhold from local authorities administrative powers, but that does not necessarily diminish the cost, because if a local authority disagrees with a Government Department, to the costs of getting powers from Parliament itself have to be added the cost of a local inquiry which the Department holds; so that it is not necessarily the fact that in every case Provisional Orders will reduce the costs to local authorities of promoting legislation. Perhaps the Provisional Order could be used in certain directions; and indeed it is already being used. Water boards can now have powers, I understand, without obtaining special sanction from Parliament. There are certain overriding considerations in the case of water boards and sewerage boards which can promote alliances between local authorities without finding their way to Parliament at all for those powers; and the Provisional Order might be adopted in certain cases and in certain defined directions. I do not think, in all humility, that the Provisional Order is itself a proper way to get over all the difficulties facing local authorities, but rather that local authorities should be able to come to Parliament and obtain powers more simply, more cheaply and more expeditiously.
I apologise to the House for having spoken so long, but I knew when I rose that it was impossible to present to the House any case which would have very much coherence, because I find very little coherence in the Standing Orders themselves. I have spent some time in looking them up and I hope right hon. and hon. Members will forgive me if I have not been as clear as I might be in describing the difficulties which they create. Clarity, I suppose, can be realised rather in the administration of them than in the reading of them in the library. I hope I have said enough to convince hon. Members that serious consideration ought to be given to my proposal, and that an inquiry should be held in order that local
authorities may be relieved of the incubus which at present rests upon them.

Mr. J. H. PALIN: I beg to Second the Motion.
While I am afraid that I cannot follow altogether my hon. Friend who has moved this Resolution with such fluency and eloquence in the remedies which he proposes, I certainly can endorse his diagnosis of the complaint from which local authorities are suffering. The chief difficulty at the moment, and one which will become more acute in the immediate future, arises from the fact that we have altered the date at which Parliamentary Sessions begin and the date when they end, but have made no alteration in the dates on which the various notices which have been referred to by my hon. Friend have to be presented. Representations have been made by those who devote a considerable amount of their time to this work, and as it is very close and exhausting work, to which we have to pay close attention, I feel that in addition to the difficulties which stand in the way of local authorities getting a decision as quickly as possible consideration ought also to be given to the difficulties of hon. Members who devote their time to this work.
As the Standing Orders work out now, Members of the Local Legislation Committee and, to a very large extent, the group committees cannot begin their work before March and that means that the most exacting portion of their duties has to be performed during the "dog days," when it is very difficult to keep awake while listening for hour after hour to some of the prosy speeches which we hear. Best work is not secured by concentrating the consideration of these very important Bills into the three hottest months of the year. By a small alteration of the Standing Orders it would be possible to spread the work throughout the year, and I believe that would result in Bills receiving more consideration and in much wiser decisions being come to. My hon. Friend suggested that private Bills could be held over from Session to Session. I am afraid there is some misunderstanding about that. Certain Bills were held over last year, but I am informed it has been the custom that a Bill which did not get through both Houses in one Session had to start de novo in the next; all the great ex-
pense incurred by the local authority being therefore wasted.
I feel that some alteration could be made in the direction of sending Bills of a certain type to be dealt with by one Committee under the direction of one chairman. At the present moment there are no methods of dealing with this type of Bill. An "omnibus Bill," which contains almost all things, is considered by the Local Legislation Committee, but an extension Bill, or any other type of Bill promoted by a local authority which does not contain police and sanitary measures, has to be dealt with by a special committee who probably have had no previous experience of this type of work. The result of this is that we get decisions which are inconsistent and quite illogical. Although the Local Legislation Committee meets in two sections, the Chairman always sees to it at the commencement of a Session that no new principle is decided until it has been thoroughly discussed by the whole of the Committee, and in that way it is made certain that no new precedents are created until proper consideration has been given to them; but a Bill might be committed to a group committee which has given no consideration to those points and which creates anomalies and inconsistencies in consequence.
The difficulties of agents and counsel would be very largely met, and a great deal of opposition to Standing Orders would be removed, if the work were spread over a longer time. But there is one difficulty which I do not think could be met by any Amendment of the Standing Orders and that concerns the expense of counsel, because not only do local authorities engage counsel to present their own case, but very often they engage other counsel in order to prevent their opponents from securing them, feeling they know too much. This results in a great deal of waste, but how this difficulty is to be met I have not the temerity to suggest. Still, it is a very great evil.
The procedure laid down is considerably out of date. The Mover of the Motion did not say very much with regard to the difficulties of getting to this House in the first instance. Before a local authority can secure consideration of their proposals by Parliament quite
a number of obstacles have to be overcome in their own district. First of all, they have to get a two-thirds majority in their own council. I have seen a great deal of trouble taken to prepare a Bill, and then the opposition walk out and leave the council without the necessary two-thirds majority. Very necessary legislation has often been delayed by a rigid insistence on a two-thirds majority. The ratepayers' meeting is another very great obstacle. It was all right when we could all meet on the village green and discuss whether we wanted a drain or did not want it; but there is no large industrial centre to-day where you can get a quarter or a tenth part of the population into the largest hall you can find in the district. Therefore, the ratepayers' meeting becomes an absolute farce. In the same way, the poll which is inevitably demanded is quite as great a farce, because, while you may get people to understand what the municipal candidate is putting forward at an election—and some of them are to be complimented on their understanding—it is very difficult to get the ordinary ratepayer to enter into the numerous Clauses of a Parliamentary Bill, and to have sufficient enthusiasm to go and record a vote in its favour or against it. The result is that only interested parties record their votes, and very often the Bill is defeated by those who have some vested interest to support.
I feel also that the Standing Orders might very properly be looked into with regard to strengthening the powers in relation to the right of people with no apparent interest to oppose a Bill. I feel that the petitions against Bills are sometimes so thin that they resolve themselves into a species of blackmail against the authority that is promoting the Bill. I have seen many instances in which, to prevent further time being wasted, local authorities have been compelled to buy off opposition which in my judgment ought never to have been allowed to be put forward. I quite endorse all that the Mover has said with regard to the question of the revision of fees and the more frequent following up by Public Health Amendment Acts to endorse the chief decisions given by the Local Legislation Committee and place the advantages of the powers granted to those promoting Bills at the disposal of other authorities
without their having to incur the very great expenditure of promoting further legislation.
The expense of this is very great, and often quite out of proportion to the advantages that may be gained by the promotion of a Bill. There is a classic instance, which has been quoted in this House before, with regard to the town of Ramsbottom, in Lancashire, which has a population of 15,381. In 1923, that small local authority asked for power from Parliament to run seven omnibuses to supplement an existing transport service. The total cost of promoting the Bill to secure that power amounted to £2,025, or 2s. 7d. per head of the population, all for the privilege of running seven additional omnibuses. I have no doubt that hon. Members who have served for any length of time on local authorities could furnish even more absurd examples of wasteful expenditure.
It would seem that possibly there might also be some advantage in taking evidence in the locality. I am not going to commit myself to that as a remedy, but it requires consideration. I can quite see that, in the case of some Bills, the expense of members of the Committee and counsel proceeding to the locality would be greater than that of bringing the witnesses to London, but there have been Bills before this House in the case of which, if a Commissioner could have been appointed to take the evidence in the locality, the proceedings would undoubtedly have been considerably simplified and a considerable amount of unnecessary expenditure saved, while probably a much better result would have been brought about in the long run.
While we speak of these ancient things with very great respect, there is very good ground for the appointment of a Committee by the Government to give consideration to the matters which we have so inadequately put before the House this evening. Should such a Committee be appointed, I am convinced that satisfactory evidence could be adduced in favour of providing simplified procedure and more up-to-date Standing Orders, and that very great benefit would result in the direction of saving the ratepayers' money and increasing the amount of legislation passed during an ordinary Session. I have very great pleasure in seconding this Motion, and trust that it may not
only be carried by the House but may also receive the very earnest attention of the Government.

Mr. HURD: I should like to say a few words in support of the proposal that there should be some inquiry into this matter. It has been my good fortune to serve upon the Local Legislation Committee for some period, and much that has been said by my hon. Friend who has just preceded me really appeals to one as arising out of his close and intimate association with the work of that Committee. One cannot refer to the work of that Committee without paying a tribute to the devotion of its chairman. I do not know that I have ever sat upon a committee which had as its chairman one who was more intent upon scrupulous fairness, unbending zeal, and devotion to his duty. Nothing could exceed the time and labour that he devotes to that work.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Who is he?

Mr. HURD: The hon. Member for Stretford (Sir T. Robinson). If my hon. Friend does not know him, I suggest that he should quickly make his acquaintance. He is one of the most useful Members of this House. He comes from Lancashire. It would not be easy to exaggerate the value of the work which that Committee does. I happened the other day to be on the high seas somewhat far away from England, and I came into touch in a casual way with some one who, in the course of conversation, disclosed that he was a member of a well-known municipal corporation in this country. He disclosed to me, without knowing that I was a Member of Parliament, some of the troubles that they go through. "Why," he said, "do you know, the way in which the House of Commons interferes in our business is something outrageous." I asked him what he was referring to, and he said, "The other day they had one of our Bills up there, and they had our officials, own town clerk and our treasurer, on the grid, with the result that we had a terrible time. They complained that the finances of our electricity undertaking were not separated from the other finances of the corporation, so that we were not able really to tell them whether it was or was not a paying proposition." I said, "It seems to me the Committee did you a good
service." He said, "After that jacketing, our people came back and put our heads together and we have changed our whole method now."
That is one illustration of many that could be quoted in which the Committee, by its quiet persistent attention to matters of efficiency in municipal life, have really done a great service. All the same, I agree with my hon. Friend, watching the work of the Committee from day to day, that the procedure has become out of date. It was created in days quite different from these and it is very costly. Sitting there day by day, you frequently find seven or eight learned counsel, K.C.'s and others, fighting over a comparatively minor municipal proposition. I remember that one little body that came to the Committee had to incur expenses involving a 4d. rate. The procedure could be simplified. At any rate, it is a subject well worthy of inquiry. I well remember that we had a long, legal argument addressed to us as to whether a small municipal body should or should not be entitled to close a pier on certain days of the year to suit the convenience of the community, and also whether or not they should be allowed to raise the pier charge.
There are questions of all sorts that might well be left to the discretion of a municipality, with the feeling that if it made a mess of things, the ratepayers should have enough interest in local affairs to give it its proper punishment. I feel that in all these matters we should learn to trust local authorities far more than we now do, and in that and in other ways it will be most useful if the Government undertake an inquiry, not with a view in any way of depreciating the most valuable work the Committee does, but in order to bring the procedure of local legislation more into touch with modern conditions.

Mr. EGAN: I rise as one who has served on a local legislation committee and knows' something of this work and has had to present several Bills to Parliament through the committee. I should like to add a word or two to what has been said in favour of the inquiry that is being asked for. The method at present is that in sending a Bill forward, all the Departments that have any interest at all are invited to
supply criticisms as to whether they think the suggestions are workable or not. This ought to simplify the matter very much indeed as to arriving at a considered conclusion, especially as most municipalities have their Bills framed on model resolutions which, having once been put on the Statute Book, should not admit of any obstruction. I have been concerned with Bills which have been before the Committee for three weeks. We come up on a Monday or Tuesday and bring the officials of the corporation with us. I have known as many as 40 or 50 important officials from an urban area covering 20 or 30 miles, who have been away from their duties for three weeks. There is the expense of going home at the week-end, coming back on the Monday morning, staying till Friday and departing for home again, to come up the following week for a Bill consisting of one contentious Measure and the rest of it agreed matters which have already been passed.
The suggestion has been made that inquiries might be held in the towns. In my town we approached the Minister of Health with regard to the first settling of rents under a Housing Bill. An inspector came to Birkenhead, saw the property, held his inquiry the same afternoon, arrived at a decision and went back the next day to London. I am confident that this would not have been settled in one day if we had had to bring all the people to London to argue the point before the tribunal. Again, may I point out the unfairness of the procedure as it affects municipalities. If you have a omnibus service and seek to extend its operations, you must come to the House for permission, but a private company which has applied for a licence to run into the town and has been refused, can apply to the Ministry of Transport, which may hold that consent has been unreasonably withheld, and give permission to run, without the municipality having an opportunity of arguing its case before the tribunal. Instances of that sort could be multiplied, and they ought to be met by some form of inquiry rather than the long procedure we have to go through when the Bill is upstairs.
I do not know that we always get a fair decision, because the gentlemen who practise before it one day advocate the
benefits of a certain; Measure, and the next day, on another Bill, you hear them argue that it is the worst thing a municipality could be allowed to do. It appears to me that with a trained adjudicator, much might be saved in the way of witnesses and the fluctuations of a Committee changing from session to session. I think there is real good ground for an inquiry. I do not know anything that would be more ardently wished for by our municipal councils and the officials who work under them and frame the legislation. I am sure it is a Measure which would be received throughout the country with more approval than anything else. I am very glad to have the opportunity to add my suggestion to that of the others that the hon. Lady should take the matter into consideration.

Mr. JAMES HUDSON: It is extremely unfortunate that, on a subject of this importance, the House is apparently so wearied by its efforts last night that so few are prepared to give much detailed consideration to the matter in hand. My experience upon these Committees leads me to believe that this is a subject of major importance for Parliament to consider.
The very rapid change in local affairs and the rapid changes in population to which the Mover of this Motion referred will continue to produce more and more cases which will require the detailed attention of Parliamentary Committees dealing with the subject of local legislation. I cannot take the view that the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hurd) took about the great effectiveness of these Committees. I will at once admit what he says about the hon. Gentlemen who serve as chairmen, not only the hon. Gentleman, the Member for Stretford (Sir T. Robinson), who presided over the main Local Legislation Committee, but the chairmen who have been appointed to take their part in several Committees which deal with appeals concerning the extension of municipal boundaries and so on. Generally the amount of detailed attention, constancy and care which are given by them to the matters in hand is beyond all praise, but while that is so it makes it the more remarkable that the Committees, constituted as they are of Members who are agreed to be efficient persons to examine into these issues,
should allow the development of the Parliamentary Bar and of the Parliamentary agent up to the point which has been reached to-day. In my judgment, it is one of the gravest scandals of our times.
There has been an explanation made as to how it comes about that members of the Parliamentary Bar are able to extract the fees out of local authorities which they do extract. The crowding of the business, as my hon. Friend said very effectively, into the dog days, gives certain barristers who are much in demand a very special opportunity to extract all they want to extract. There is a legend, I believe, both among Parliamentary barristers and amongst barristers in general that it is a good thing for the more successful barristers to charge high fees; that it is a good thing from the point of view of everybody, otherwise everybody would be running for the specially effective barristers and our Courts would be crowded with cases requiring to be adjudicated upon to such an extent that nothing could be done.
I sat on one of these committees dealing with a case brought by the Birmingham Corporation some two or three years ago. The most distinguished Parliamentary barristers in the land had been engaged on one side or the other, and they were dodging from the room in which we were sitting to other rooms on the same corridor where other cases were being heard. Their minds were so confused that we who sat on the bench hearing the case knew far more about it than they did. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite laughs. I saw this sort of thing, as he must have seen it if he had been present at proceedings of this sort.

Major GEORGE DAVIES: I was only laughing because I thought the situation was an amusing one. I was not laughing at what the hon. Gentleman was saying.

Mr. HUDSON: I am obliged to the hon. and gallant Gentleman. It would be amusing if it were not a tragedy, which, as has been so well shown, leads to local authority after local authority refusing to bring forward questions that very badly require to be deal with. The particular instance of which I am speaking led to the expenditure of many thousands of pounds both by Birmingham, the neighbouring municipalities and
the neighbouring county councils. In a way the payment of Members of Parliament makes this issue the more paradoxical. You put upon a committee—in the case of which I am speaking there were three Members of Parliament—and threaten them with all sorts of penalties if they dare to be absent. You hold the meetings of the committee throughout the week, sometimes beginning on Monday morning. In my own case, living as I do in a constituency far away in the North, I usually manage to get down to the House in time for the afternoon sitting on Monday. When I was put on this Committee we began on Monday morning and I had to come down to London on Sunday in order to be ready for the work. We are paid a Parliamentary salary to discharge all the functions expected of us, including this difficult judicial function of sitting on a committee.
Here we sit in front of Parliamentary barristers who, by the chance given to them through the extraordinary disorganisation of business, extract thousands and tens of thousands of pounds annually out of the cases of which I am speaking. From every point of view, from our point of view as Members of Parliament as well as from the point of view of local authorities, we ought to strive to make such a reorganisation of public business that this sort of thing should be ended. The same thing applies to the Parliamentary agents. In a way, perhaps, the local authorities are themselves to blame for attaching so much importance to these barristers and agents. I cannot understand why municipalities, large municipalities like Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham, who are generally led in their administrative affairs by gentlemen of very high legal qualifications, town clerks and so on, special people appointed for their legal knowledge and their powers to judge upon issues of this kind, do not content themselves with appointing their own officials who know through and through the case which is being adjudicated upon.

Mr. PALIN: Many of them are barristers.

Mr. HUDSON: Many of them are barristers, and whatever may be the reason why the municipalities do not content themselves with appointing their
own employés, their own barristers, to put their case forward, at any rate Parliament ought to make greater efforts to save the waste and the scandal that this state of things represents. There was not only the case to which I referred, which dealt with an extension of boundaries, but at the same time as this particular issue was being decided, an examination was being held in a room in another part of the same corridor into the case of the Port of Glasgow and the neighbouring authorities. On that case well over £20,000 was spent in Parliamentary fees and expenses. We have been told about the classic instance of the town of Ramsbottom in the County of Lancaster, and of the enormous burden placed upon each ratepayer in that area as a result of the expenses incurred in order to get the right to run some six or seven extra omnibuses. The amount that was charged would have bought two or three of the omnibuses which were ultimately run.
It is with this spectacle before us that we ought most seriously to give our attention to the claims which my hon. Friend has so eloquently made in the Motion he has submitted to us. Large migrations of populations are now going on as the result of slum clearances. I have no doubt that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health will be able to remind us of larger and larger slum clearances which will take place in the near future, and that there will be a migration of town population into the areas contiguous to the town where the expense is being incurred in order to secure changes and improvements in the housing conditions of the people who have hitherto lived in the slums.
Not very long ago we had the case of the Manchester City Council, which was examining into the possibilities of making a great housing extension into the area of Wythenshawe, which is a place well known to hon. Gentlemen opposite and was given through the beneficence of one of the hon. Members sitting on the Liberal benches, the hon. Member for Withington (Mr. Simon). It is a place delightfully adapted for the purpose of a greater population, a place that Manchester wants to see rapidly developed, and a place over which Manchester ought to have some control, yet, on account of the opposition, in my
opinion the very insufficient opposition, of the Cheshire County Council, thinking merely of the rateable value that it thought it would lose, in the long run Manchester was prevented from going forward with a very effective scheme that ought to be gone on with. I understand that Manchester will come again, very shortly, to put the case before Parliament and it is likely that they will go again through the same expensive process, and some £10,000 or more will again be spent when the matter is referred to a Committee upstairs.
There is no justification for this sort of thing. I suggest that we ought to produce an arrangement by which the business could be scattered throughout the whole year, and that fewer Parliamentary barristers should be appointed. A rule ought to be made that would prevent the appointment of barristers. I do not think that we could entirely stop people from appointing barristers, but we might limit the number appointed by the various municipalities. A rule of that sort might make a very considerable improvement in the matters we are discussing to-night. Seeing that we are likely to have in the immediate future, particularly near great cities like Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Birmingham, more cases where re-adaptations of boundaries will be brought before committees of this House, I am sure that the need for altering our Standing Orders and the procedure which applies in regard to these questions, is greater than at any time we have known. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to announce that the Government intend to set up an inquiry into the whole history of committee proceedings, out of which perhaps may be found the best step to take in order to effect the improvement for which we ask.

9.0 p.m.

Sir DOUGLAS NEWTON: I have much pleasure in supporting the Motion, which has been moved in such eloquent terms by my hon. Friend opposite. I have pleasure in supporting the Motion because I believe its main purpose is to cut through what I regard as unnecessary red tape. The promotion of Bills so far as most local authorities are concerned is not very frequently resorted to. County councils, for example, do not promote much Private Bill legislation. Borough councils come before this House with
Private Bills more frequently than county councils. Nevertheless, the number, of Bills that any individual local authority promotes is in most cases, not very numerous, and it is perhaps, for that reason that this matter, which is a genuine grievance, has not found public expression in this House. It is only when a local authority finds it necessary to promote a Bill, such as perhaps for the extension of its boundaries, that it realises what a great many difficulties there are, and how much expense is entailed, and it appreciates then for the first time the need for some revision in the existing machinery. In the main, almost without exception, local authorities promote Bills in the general public interest. If the Bill is in the public interest, every possible facility for the passage of that Bill should be given. In some cases the Bills are promoted for sanitary reasons, which everyone admits is a desirable object, yet they have to go through the same costly procedure. I believe I am right in stating that in the case of a Bill promoted by the Middlesex County Council, the Thames Bridges Bill, which was promoted only last year and opposed in one House only, the cost amounted to £5,000. The same authority promoted a Bill in 1925, and again the Bill was opposed only in one House and yet the cost of the passage of the Bill amounted to over £2,500. If these Bills had been opposed in both Houses the costs would have been higher. It can hardly be argued that these heavy costs, which fall upon the ratepayers, should be incurred by local authorities who are promoting Bills in the public interest.
Reference has been made to the Parliamentary Bar and the high fees which are exacted from those who promote Bills. No doubt that is a very considerable factor in the cost of the Bills, and it makes it perhaps all the more urgent that the machinery should be made as simple as possible, and that the simplest procedure should be evolved. There is a general measure of agreement in this House as to the grievance and the difficulty under discussion and the necessity of steps being taken to deal with the matter. I should like to examine some of the possible methods of ameliorating the position. When a Bill is promoted, first of all it has to be done by a definite
date. I do not take exception to that, but there is always a rush on the 25th November in regard to these Private Bills. Expensive advertising has to be resorted to. Two publications have to be made in various organs of the Press. Large numbers of plans have to be prepared and deposited in different places. It might be possible to save expense by giving notice that the plans are available in one particular place, and can be inspected there. The preliminaries are expensive, but those expenses do not all appear in the general account although they are expenses which have to be met by the ratepayers. Then there is the lengthy procedure of the inquiry if the Bill is opposed in this House and in another place.
Is it necessary to resort to this cumbersome procedure? I suggest, with all respect, that a Joint Committee of both Houses could be arranged for and a much cheaper process could be evolved than the existing one. We already resort to that method in regard to certain Bills and I think the same machinery might be used in respect of other Bills. Provisional Orders might be made more use of. I believe I am right in saying that it is not possible to have a Provisional Order unless some special Act of Parliament governs the particular matter under consideration. Resort to Provisional Orders might, however, be more extensively made, although that might require a further Act of Parliament. Allusion has been made to the fees payable to the House in respect of these Bills. I believe the fees have been raised 33⅓ per cent. during the last five years. It may be desirable that the fees should be revised, but I suggest that if they are revised again they should be revised downwards and not upwards.
For these and other reasons I hope the House will support this Motion, and bring into the limelight the very difficult position of local authorities. The duties which are imposed on local authorities are ever growing, getting larger and more important, and as that is the case there will ever be more and more need for them in the future to promote private Bills. It is, therefore, up to us as the guardians of the taxpayer as well as the ratepayer to do all we can to lighten that burden.

Mr. SHERWOOD: I hesitate to take part in this Debate, and I am prompted to intervene for only a few minutes because of a very bitter experience I have had in connection with Private Bills and Provisional Orders. An hon. Member opposite has said that local authorities discover they are in difficulties only when they want an extension of their boundaries. That is not my experience. The Corporation of Wakefield has been compelled to come here with Private Bills when they have had no desire to do so. The whole point in connection with this Motion is that the Borough Funds Acts will have to be reviewed. My own locality has gained a little notoriety lately. We promoted a Bill in this House in 1924. The House fees were £452. I submit that the fees to a local authority presenting a Bill either in this or the other House ought to be nothing. In 1923 we had a Bill, and the fees were £250; in 1906, a Provisional Order, in which not even a single witness was necessary and no barrister, not even the town clerk in attendance, and the fees were £350. Who gets these fees? If you desire to help local authorities these fees should be abolished altogether.
I agree with the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. J. Hudson) that you should limit the number of counsel. I would limit counsel and barrister to one case at a time. In 1924, two rival Bills were promoted before the Committee upstairs, Oldham and Rochdale Corporations on the one hand and Wakefield and Morley Corporations on the other—each with its own counsel. I sat through the whole of that case. Counsel came in every five minutes and then went to a case in another room. He did not know his job; but it cost the corporations £41,000. The Bill was in connection with the acquisition of the Rochdale Canal Company's undertaking, and it cost the Oldham and Rochdale Corporations £21,000 between them; two-thirds for Oldham, and one-third for Rochdale, or £14,000 for Oldham and £7,000 for Rochdale. It cost the Morley Corporation, a comparatively small borough, £14,000, and the Wakefield Corporation £6,500. I think the House agrees that there is a necessity for inquiry into this matter. Let me get a little bit nearer. We have had an advertisement recently in the City of London, and we appreciate the kindly encouragement we have received
from the Minister of Health and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, but are not over grateful for the help from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We are mulcted in a rate of 1s. 4d. in the £ for 30 years. It may be somebody's fault, but it means that not only my own bairns but my grandchildren are going to be penalised to the extent of 1s. 4d. in the £ in rates. We cannot get out of that difficulty. I am sure hon. Members opposite know more about this than I do. It is bad enough to bear, but we have to come here with a Bill which means a few more coppers in the pound in rates on the top of it all.
I submit that it ought to be within the power of the Minister of Health to sanction such matters, just as in the same way they can give sanction to expenditure, on the credit of the rates. Our credit is good yet, and it ought not be necessary to come here again with a Bill to get out of the difficulty. It is simply piling the burden on the ratepayers, and when all is said and done it is not a question of Liberal, Socialist or Tory ratepayers. They have all to pay. We have to meet it. The present machinery, in my opinion, hinders every opportunity and every desire of a local authority to advance. I know the Motion will be carried, but I hope the Government will act upon it, and act quickly. You get five or six Bills upstairs and five or six lawyers. Not one knows his job. If any hon. Member wants a little experience let him go upstairs at the start of these Committees. He will see the man to whom you have paid thousands of pounds running from one room to another like a terrier in a fit. If it is a borough council the town clerk has probably said, "I ought to be given an opportunity of consulting and engaging counsel on this "—the fat-head—and when he gets here he has to do the job himself, but he is not allowed to do it because of the fellow in the gown, who is bleeding us. If a man is returned as a member of his local authority and also to Parliament he is a better judge of the needs of the local authority than all the barristers in the world.

Captain BOURNE: I think this is the first occasion on which the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Sherwood) has addressed the House, and, if so, I wish to offer him my sincere congratulations.
I also wish to express a great deal of sympathy with the cases which he has brought forward of the very heavy costs sometimes incurred by local authorities. But that is not a matter which is within our control. If people chose to engage very expensive counsel, and to bring very expensive expert witnesses before the Committees upstairs, it is hardly fair to blame either this House or its Standing Orders for the expense involved. I have spent many hours upstairs on those Committees, and I, for one, would have been grateful had I been spared some of the eloquence and had I been able to listen to the evidence of the officials of the authorities concerned, rather than to that of expert witnesses whose evidence in one case was probably contradicted by the evidence given a week previously in another place. I do not think there can be any objection to the suggestion that there should be an inquiry into the Standing Orders dealing with private legislation, but while listening to the speech of the Mover of this Motion, I could not help feeling that it was a pity that he, being a new Member of this House, had not had that experience of the work upstairs which is rather necessary in dealing with a Motion of this kind.
To begin with, we have to remember that Private Bill legislation, whether promoted by a local authority or by any other body, is peculiar. It started originally in petitions presented to Parliament on some matter outside the ordinary law of the realm, and it has been continued in that form to this day. The point which ought to be emphasised is that a petition for a Private Bill is, in effect, a request to Parliament to endow a local authority or some other body with powers which are not possessed under statute law by the ordinary citizens of this realm. It is a request to us to give a special legal power to a special body for a special purpose. I submit that when a body—I do not mind what kind of body it is—asks for powers and rights in law, not possessed by His Majesty's subjects in general, it is our business to look into that request with extreme care. That is our duty.
There are on the Statute Book a number of consolidating Public Health Acts, and Acts of that sort containing provisions which any local authority can adopt
if they wish to do so. But when they come to Parliament to ask for powers they are asking for extra powers, powers which must, of their nature, invade the rights of others of His Majesty's subjects, and it is extremely important that before such rights are granted there should be a careful inquiry by an impartial tribunal. I have sat on many of those Committees upstairs, and if I were, either a person promoting a Private Ball, or a person opposing a Private Bill, I, personally, should not ask to go before a more impartial or painstaking tribunal than that provided by the Members of this House, who devote many hours of hard work and patient hearing to trying to arrive at just decisions in these cases. I hold a very high opinion of the Private Bill Committees of this House. I feel that some tribunal is necessary, and I very much doubt whether, if you decided to remove the jurisdiction from this House, you could find a tribunal which would command more support or more general confidence than that commanded by the Committees of this House.
That is the first point. The second point which we have to remember is that of the Standing Orders relating to Private Business. One would not like to suggest that these Standing Orders could not be improved, or that an inquiry is not necessary; but the main thing to realise is that the bodies who present petitions to Parliament for Private Bills are seeking special and extra legal powers, powers which are likely to invade the rights and privileges of His Majesty's subjects in general. The whole object of these Orders is to make sure that anybody whose rights and privileges may be invaded by the proposed legislation shall have the utmost notice of such legislation and the utmost opportunity of presenting objections to it if he wishes to do so. Complaint has been made of the complicated rules which have to be complied with, the necessity of giving notice all round, and the very close inspection which is made in this House to ensure that the Standing Orders have been complied with, but what is the object of these Standing Orders? It is to ensure that those people whose rights or interests may be affected by the proposed legislation have notice of it. They may agree and they may think that the legislation is excellent, but they may, on
the contrary, have quite valid objections to it. I am certain that many of the objections raised to Private Bills are in themselves substantial, though they may not be sufficient in the judgment of the Committee to call for the rejection either of the Bill or of the particular Clause on which they are made.
It is only fair and reasonable that those people whose rights are affected should have the fullest notice of what is intended, and the fullest opportunity of putting their case before the tribunal. That is the object of most of the Standing Orders dealing with private business. The Mover suggested that local authorities are very intelligent persons and that they have very skilled assistants—and I agree—and that therefore, any measure which they propose should ipso facto receive the assent of the House. But he overlooked the fact that although a proposal might be admirable from the point of view of the local authority, it might be extraordinarily detrimental from the point of view of other people affected by it. A local authority might desire to establish a sewage farm in a certain place. That would be an excellent project from the point of view of the local authority but it might be very detrimental to all the people living in the vicinity where it is proposed to establish the sewage farm. Then, not infrequently, we have to deal with Bills promoted by local authorities on the question of water supplies, and one or two have been sanctioned by this House under which the water supply of a municipality—I am thinking of Birmingham, Liverpool and Bolton—is drawn from another district far remote from that municipality, and the interests of the people in that district must of necessity differ totally from those of the municipality promoting the Bill.
It is obvious that big municipalities have a right to the opportunity of getting the water supply which they require, but I do not think that even the biggest municipality has the right to come down on another district and to say, "This is a suitable place for our reservoir, and we propose to dump it here," and to do so without listening to the objections of the inhabitants of that district in which it is proposed to dump the reservoir. I do not think that is reasonable. I submit to the House very earnestly that the whole ob-
ject of the Standing Orders relating to private business is to give to persons whose rights are affected by some proposition, such as that I have just outlined, an opportunity of stating their case to what I, for one, believe is one of the best tribunals you can find for the purpose. If I am right in that, although I do not for a moment oppose the Motion, I do think the House or the committee or whatever other body is get up, should very carefully consider that point of view before it makes any serious recommendations or alterations in the Standing Orders.
I have only one other point to make. A great deal has been said about expenditure. I would point out to this House that the expenditure, namely fees, exacted by the Standing Orders is not very heavy. I have worked it out that a Bill can have five days in Committee and go through all the other stages in this House for a fee of £125. There was a Bill which dealt with a capital sum exceeding £5,000,000 and which had a considerable period of the time of this House for £750. These sums are not very excessive when you come to consider the magnitude of the interests involved. I am convinced that a great deal of the expenditure on Private Bills is high because the municipalities think that there are certain counsel whose services they must have. As always happens in this world, if you have several people demanding the services of one man whose time is limited, he is able to put a very high price on those services. The same is true of expert witnesses. You have municipalities and private companies competing for the services of one or two expert witnesses whom they desire to call before the Committees of this House, and in consequence of this the charges of these gentlemen are very high. I believe, like the hon. Member who has just spoken, that many of these Bills could be promoted far more cheaply if the municipalities would use their own officers and would rely for evidence on their own officials.

Mr. ARNOTT: I am sure every Member on this side is grateful to the hon. Member who has just spoken. I began to fear for this Resolution because I believed that nothing was so dangerous as apparent unanimity and that unless
you got some element of contradiction or combativeness, no resolution or scheme had the least chance of fructifying. The hon. Member who has just spoken informed us that he would not oppose the Resolution, but the whole of his speech was a eulogy of the present methods. It may be worth while examining that speech for a few moments. The hon. Member began with a history of the origin of private legislation. He pointed out that the municipalities, like other bodies, were under a common statutory law and came here in the form of petitioners asking for special privileges which were not possessed by other people. I would ask him if he knows of a single municipality, of any magnitude, at any rate, in the whole of the country, which could carry on its work efficiently simply by the statutory law. I do not know of one. Every municipality, as far as I know, has to get special legislation to carry on this particular work.
This Resolution is a very modest one and might even be opposed on the ground that it did not go far enough. It admits that, for the time being at any rate, a great municipality, with half a million people or more, should not be allowed to extend its powers and do things that no single one of its citizens can do under the ordinary law, without promoting legislation here. We are not asking you to change that for the time being. What is suggested is that when a municipality comes here after carrying out the ordinary procedure with the support of two-thirds of the members of the local council and obtaining very often the support of a body of representative citizens, the Standing Orders should be amended so as to enable a judgment to be given at reasonable cost and in reasonable time, both of which are of very great importance.
Every member of a municipality has had experience of what these two things mean. They have had experience of what cost means and of what delay means and the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken explained why barristers command such high fees. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Sherwood), that municipalities are always foolish in engaging barristers. I do not agree with the hon. Member opposite either that the engaging of barristers is
not an extravagance in many instances. The municipality which is conducting a Bill is faced with this difficulty: Their town clerk may be an admirable man and their officials may be admirable men. They may know much more about the subject than any particular barrister or collection of barristers, but they have not always got the aptitude to put the case in the way in which it ought to be put in order to appeal to the particular committee which is dealing with it. It is quite conceivable that a barrister, without knowing so much of the case, may put it in the most acceptable way which is likely to carry the best results in the committee. We know that sort of thing has been done again and again, and the fact that the witnesses brought forward by the municipality undergo proper examination by a most expensive barrister on the other side makes it necessary for the corporation, if it is to have a reasonable chance of winning its case, to engage equally costly barristers on the other side.
Very often even the distinguished town clerk has only one method of judging the efficiency of a barrister, and that is by the cost, very much in the same way as in judging the efficiency of a football player—and probably with as little justification. Therefore, if we want to give justice, I think we do need to ensure that it should be given with reasonable cost and in reasonable time. The cost is very excessive, and part of that cost is due to the wide scope of the inquiry. I have attended one or two inquiries, and have found that, no matter what powers are being sought in a Bill, every single thing in connection with the municipality is examined before the committee. I remember reading, many years ago, a rather famous book, called "Gulliver's Travels," in which a distinguished writer deals with lawyers who are making examination as to the ownership of a cow.
We find pretty much the same thing when a Bill brought forward by a municipality comes before the Committee upstairs. Whatever powers are being sought, you are asked first of all to describe the population of a city, the extent and acreage, the sewerage system, the number of officials and the number of miles of roads. Every conceivable
thing connected with that particular city is asked for, although the Bill may have nothing whatever to do with it. That all fills up the days and gives an opportunity for asking questions and for cross-examination. If a municipality asks for powers to run an omnibus service outside a town, they send the Bill up here, or one or two Clauses in a Bill giving them the power, and it goes through the processes I have described, including a long period of cross-examination, and after all the finances of the city have been brought under review, to see if they are fit persons to run half a dozen vehicles, although they may be running a hundred already, they are successful, and every person who has any interest whatever in any rival or possible rival service can not only come there, but if he is skilful, he can pose as a representative ratepayer and be represented by counsel and give a great deal of trouble to that municipality. While this is going on at enormous cost, a decision may be reached one way or another, and in spite of the complimentary things said about the Committees upstairs—and I am prepared to admit that they do their work judicially—no one can say what their decisions will be. The same municipality may bring forward a proposal one year and get it turned down, and then bring forward practically the same proposal another year, and it goes through, and no human being can foretell what the result of an inquiry will be after all this expense.
There is another aspect of this question, which I think has been entirely overlooked. We have been discussing it all the time as if all the procedure in connection with a private Bill was connected with a Committee upstairs, but that private Bill has to undergo certain stages down here, and I can remember a case when this particular Chamber was packed to the door. I happened to be in the Gallery representing a municipality on that occasion, and I agree that it was a very extensive Bill, which aroused a great deal of controversy, but every possible means had been taken by that municipality to conciliate the opposition. It had come before an official of the Ministry of Health, who had held his inquiry and given the scheme his approval. He had eliminated certain areas that he said should not be included in the scheme, and passed other areas which, according
to his adjudication ought to have been included in the scheme, and that particular Bill, after a great deal of fuss and many public meetings, not only in the particular city but in all the neighbourhood, and after almost, getting an assurance from the Ministry that it would go through as far as they could enable it to go through, never reached the Committee stage here at all. We had a heated debate in this Chamber, and the Bill was turned out, and the whole effort in connection with it was entirely wasted.

Mr. HURD: May we know what Bill it was?

Mr. ARNOTT: It was the Leeds Extension Bill of a few years ago. Seeing that we are dealing with history on this occasion, I think I can give the reason why that attitude was taken up. Another municipality had a Bill before this House and that municipality, the municipality of Edinburgh, carried the Second Reading of its Bill here, and I think it passed its Committee stage but was rejected on Third Beading; and the indignation of the local authorities throughout the country at that decision was so great that another Bill was promoted soon afterwards, which passed this House. Obviously the people who were opposed on principle to the extension of municipal corporations at the expense of county councils were sufficiently strong to organise opposition in this House so that our Bill never got a real hearing on its merits. But it is not my purpose tonight to argue the justice or the injustice of any of these decisions. What I am arguing is that it is unfair to subject great municipalities, and even more unfair to subject small municipalities, to a very costly procedure, with no reasonable guarantee that the case shall have what one might call a fair opportunity of being decided justly and promptly. Although an hon. Member opposite did claim that there were good reasons for the present procedure, and that it was necessary to have close inquiry in order to do justice, even he never claimed that the work was done with any sort of expedition. There is a great deal of talk about ca'canny in industry, but I claim that the reversal of that policy of ca'canny should also be applied to this House, and that local authorities should have a reasonable chance of getting powers
given them to which they are justly entitled.

Major G. DAVIES: I should like to take the opportunity of relieving the anxiety of the hon. Member for South-West Hull (Mr. Arnott), who said he was afraid of this Motion because everyone was so pleased with it. I am glad to let him know that I shall not follow suit in that connection. I am in a little difficulty on account of two speeches that have been delivered from these benches by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Oxford (Captain Bourne) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Sir D. Newton), in that, being a Cambridge man, I am compelled to support the view of the hon. and gallant Member for Oxford rather than that of my colleague from Cambridge. The gravamen of the criticisms which have run through all the speeches centres on two main issues. One is the cost, and the other the cumbrousness, of procedure in connection with local government legislation. Although I am sorry to see he is no longer in the House, I should like to pay a tribute to the speech of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan), who opened the Debate. It was remarkable for its fluency, its choice of language, its knowledge of the situation, and for the flambuoyancy of youth, which those of us who are in the sere and yellow leaf sincerely envy, and also perhaps for a somewhat brief experience of procedure in this House.
In regard to the question of cost, I think the figures that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Oxford put forward regarding the costs of legislation that comes here, those costs that are laid down, are remarkably moderate when you think of the issues involved. But these big sums that are incurred by local authorities which come here are not really due to the procedure for the regulation of costs as laid down by this House. They are the result simply of the desire on the part of litigants to get the best possible presentation of their case. It is natural, therefore, if you are going to bring a case before a particular branch of legal activity, that you should go to a department of the Bar that has made a special study of it. If anybody were so unfortunate as to be mixed up in divorce proceedings, they would be unwise to go to a barrister well versed in company law.
The same thing applies precisely when you are dealing with a matter which is in the special line of Parliamentary law, and there is a special department of the Bar which, having made a life study of the subject, is probably better fitted than anyone else to present those cases.
The local authorities have received no criticism in this Debate. All the criticism has been in regard to the procedure of this House, but it is the local authorities who are resposible for these costs climbing up to the great figures that have been mentioned by hon. Members opposite, because they are satisfied that they are getting their money's worth in having the very best representation of their cases. I submit, therefore, that the question of heavy costs does not really arise under this Motion. I come back then to the real gravamen of the charge, which is the question of the cumbrousness or the reverse of the procedure. The hon. Member for South West Hull devoted a considerable portion of the latter part of his speech to a criticism of the decisions that were given here by the representatives of this august assembly. If he thought carefully, I do not think that he would come to the conclusion that his remarks were justified.
After all, we have party Government here; we have two sides to the House, and obviously something of that is sometimes reflected in certain questions, such as municipal undertakings, which come forward in some of these Measures. That is inseparable, from the mentality, the individuality and the whole formation of this House, and it does not mean that, because a decision at one time may be favourable and at another time unfavourable in a precisely similar situation, that you are not getting the most earnest, genuine and honest consideration from the Committee which sits on these Measures. Any hon. Member who has been as unfortunate as I have been in trying to show livestock at agricultural shows, will realise that one's success or lack of success does not depend entirely on the excellence of the beef one puts in, or on the fine condition which it is in, but somewhat on the vagaries of the judges who are judging that particular class of entry. The same thing applies in this question of considering private Bills, because after all in the whole judicial system, where we have trial by
jury, it is something of a "toss-up" to say how the jury are going to decide a. particular case, and in order to have the best chance you can, you get the very best counsel that you can to present your case. That is precisely on all fours with the situation which develops in promoting local government legislation here. There may be, therefore, no real foundation for the criticism of it.
Therefore we narrow it down to the question whether the procedure is too cumbrous and too long drawn out. It is based very largely on generations of experience going back into the dim ages, which we see reflected day by day in the procedure of this Chamber. The hon. Member who moved the Motion, if I may say so in criticism of a speech which I have praised, has had very little experience of the procedure of this old House of Commons, of which we are so proud to be Members. I remember well when I first entered as a very green new Member, and tried to imbibe the whys and wherefores of our procedure, that I soon found that the apparently inconvenient and absurd procedure through which we went was based on absolute common sense and sound experience. A Measure that comes before us has to go through its First Beading, Second Beading and Committee stage—as some of us rather sleepily remember this morning—and then through the Third Beading, and afterwards it has to proceed through another place and finally has to receive the Royal Assent. It is true that there are certain Measures of an emergency character which have the approval of all parties of the House, and which are given every facility in all their stages. Others are fought tooth and nail on both sides of the House, and the tradition is that that can be, as the Americans say, no "railway roading" of legislation. The whole discussion has to take place in the light of day.
That is the basis on which local legislation is also built up. It is all very well of hon. Members who know the desirability of their particular locality to want facilities for a piece of legislation which they wish to see passed. They know more about it than the judge, jury, counsel and the House of Commons. But for what are they asking? They are asking for a piece of legislation which they are sure is excellent, but they must re-
member that there are other people's rights to be considered, which are just as sacred in the eyes of the House as those of the local authorities. In this country local government began in the little parochial system, and as the country has become increasingly populated, as transport and rapid transit from one point to another has developed, interests have overlapped more than ever, and it is necessary, in questions of local legislation, when local authorities are trying to ask for special privileges, to safeguard other interests which, with the increased complexity of our civilisation, become involved. It is a matter of the free will of individuals or of local authorities to go into heavy costs in order to have their case presented in the best way. I feel that it is chasing a hare to bring up this question, but at the same time, I do not propose to vote against the Motion, because I think that we have nothing to fear from an inquiry.

10.0 p.m.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Miss Lawrence): I think that we have every reason to be grateful to the Mover of the Motion for bringing before the House so interesting and important a subject. We all of us know what our local authorities need, and I therefore do not think that it is surprising that there should have been on the whole so great a consensus of opinion with regard to the fact that local authorities have an undue difficulty in getting the new legislation which they need passed. The Department to which I am attached has received lately a very great number of earnest and serious representations from local authorities with regard to the troublesomeness of the cumbrous procedure by which they attained powers. That is perfectly true. The Mover of the Motion said that that was due to Parliament, and not to local authorities, and he reminded us of the important deputation which this Department received from a large number of local authorities He also reminded us that this was not altogether a new question, that it has been repeatedly discussed by various committee and that the last committee which made recommendations was the Reconstruction Committee of 1916, which recommended the extension of the system of legislation by Provisional Order, and the appointment
of a Joint Committee of the two Houses of Parliament to consider questions affecting procedure. There are three or four different classes of cases on the Statute Book which are very well known to hon. Members. They are first of all the applications which come up from local authorities, which are almost in common form, and the Committee have a long history of precisely similar applications from other localities which have been granted, and after the procedure giving notice and so forth has been gone though, they are granted merely as a matter of course.
With the development of local government, certain matters which at one time were the experiment of one municipality, have been made pretty general, and in each case there was the application of a special private Bill to deal with the one authority's experiment. We have sometimes had general legislation consolidating the main trend of local legislation. The last important Act of that kind was the Public Health Act of 1925, and hon. Members will remember that what was done in that Measure was to review the local legislation for a number of years and include in the Act powers which were very generally sought. If Parliament can manage to keep that up-to-date, it relieves Members of the Standing Committee of a very considerable amount of work. That is one of the ways in which Parliament ought to deal with this matter.
Then we come to the Parliamentary Committees. Members may say in principle that this is a very desirable thing. I have known Bills, of which the Second Reading was approved without a whisper of opposition, which have yet in their later stages taken a considerable time in the House, more perhaps than the Government could afford. It is necessary, in considering these matters, for a Government which has other legislation on hand to move warily and to make sure that it secures the most favourable way of meeting the needs of local authorities. Then there is the case where an authority is asking for entirely new experimental powers. I may instance Birmingham. It is proper that Parliament should consider absolutely new steps by local authorities.
There is a third class of case, the most troublesome of all, where we have seen the time of Parliament taken up and so
much money wasted, when one local authority is fighting another, or three or four local authorities are engaged in a general fight. That is a very absurd state of things. I do not want to criticise local authorities, but some of them are altogether too combative, and I do not know how these matters could be removed from Parliament except by the expedient, to which there might be a good deal of resistance, of increasing the powers of Departments to deal with certain matters. These boundary disputes are matters which need an arbitrator. It might be done more cheaply and quickly, no doubt, by professional arbitrators, but I cannot say whether that would meet the views of local authorities or Parliament. I mention it as one of the ways in which some of the burden of legislation could be removed from the House.
Then we come to the matters which are particularly mentioned by the hon. Member—the extremely long proceedings and the cost, which in some cases is excessive. I have great sympathy with the view urged by many Members of the House, but this is part of a very much larger question, and the whole of what Members intend to do could not be done by a mere cheapening of the procedure. We have to look at the case of this Imperial Parliament. It is not right that so much of the time of Members of Parliament should be taken up in dealing with cases, a good many of which could be settled, as I have said, either by general legislation or some cheaper form of arbitration. With regard to this inquiry, the Department to which I am attached is not capable of giving a definite answer. It is a matter which will receive the most earnest consideration, but hon. Members will remember that the question of whether a Government can afford the time for so intricate a matter must depend largely on the state of other legislation and the degree of unity and harmony and so forth that we can expect from Members of Parliament. I will undertake that we shall note the feeling of Members of the House as expressed to-night, and I can say that the Government will give this careful consideration. No definite promise, however, can be given in the matter at this
stage of the Session and in the present position of our business.

Commander WILLIAMS: I had no intention of taking part in this Debate until a few moments ago. I quite agree with the Under-Secretary in regard to part of her speech. It is certainly true that in certain matters we can coordinate by means of a single law and enable authorities to carry on some of the work for which they have now to come to Parliament, more easily and cheaply. There is one point, however, on which I must deprecate very strongly what the Parliamentary Secretary has said. There is a feeling in many parts of the House that Departmental powers as a general rule do not want increasing. H a resolution of this kind is to be used by the Departments as a means of increasing their powers the House will be very ill-advised to pass it. The Parliamentary Secretary hinted again that it might be possible to do many things by professional arbitration. I have listened to many criticisms of Governments based on a feeling against professional arbitration. I emphasise these two points because it is essential, when we are dealing with a general resolution of this kind, which has the sympathy of many of us in the House, that we should be very careful lest we should lay down something which will give the Departments any sort of excuse for increasing the administrative powers which they can carry on without having to come before the House itself.
Having said that, perhaps I may be allowed to make one or two comments on a part of this Resolution. The amount of actual Parliamentary time which is used in the course of a year in dealing with any of these local government Bills is not very great. If you go back through the last few years you will find the cases are comparatively rare and are almost invariably cases in which a great deal of local feeling has been aroused one way or the other. Where there is feeling in a considerable body—as in London, for example—it is no bad thing, and certainly not against the interest of the locality or country that the people representing these localities should be able to come and lay their case clearly before the House of Commons itself; and for this reason, that however excellent these Committees upstairs are, I do believe
that there is about the House of Commons itself a form of publicity which makes people very careful of what they do in these matters, and it does mean that local authorities are careful to walk in a reasonable way, and in a way which will command the respect of the country as a whole. For that reason I do not for one moment deprecate the fact that occasionally we get these Bills before us in the House of Commons; and they almost invariably lead to a very interesting and instructive Debate.
I will say a few words upon what I believe has been discussed earlier in the evening, namely, the vast expense entailed—not expense in consequence of Regulations laid down by Parliament, but expense because authorities will insist on getting very highly skilled legal opinion. I am not a lawyer, and I am one of those who consider that resort to lawyers is one of the highest follies that one can possibly commit. I say that if you are foolish enough to get into evil things of that kind, then most certainly you ought to bear the consequences. But although I believe there is hope for lawyers, I do think that when you come to expert witnesses you have in very many cases gone beyond the limit altogether. After all, in nearly every one of these cases, or, at any rate, in a very large percentage of them, the actual officials in the locality can themselves give very good evidence indeed, and if Committees upstairs could in some way or other be empowered to give to the actual people who know the locality and live there more encouragement to give their evidence clearly, simply and shortly, and if you could discourage some of those legal gentlemen in their long robes, and the expert witnesses, I believe you would be doing something very good. After all, it was once said of two lawyers—and this will never be said, possibly, of expert witnesses:
Here lie George and Robert Benn,
Lawyers both, but honest men.
God works wonders now and then.

Mr. RICHARDSON: Like many other other hon. Members of this House I have had considerable experience of local government work, having since 1919 taken some part in that matter. I am very strongly in favour of this Resolution. I myself think that if there is any way to lighten the work which now comes before the Local Legislation Committee,
cumbersome and unwieldy as it is, it is imperative that it should be done. I know that legislation will be required to lighten the load, and I hope it may be found possible to pass that legislation. A subject which very often comes before us is that of water, and I am firmly convinced that sooner or later that matter must be dealt with; and the sooner the nation as a whole takes hold of that subject the better for this country. In the present state of affairs a local authority may construct a reservoir somewhere miles away, and sap and drain the whole area which they take over as the source of their water, and the smaller and poor local authorities intervening are bound to accept whatever their big brother is inclined to give them. That to me appears to be folly. I remember a case when a local authority, finding that their water resources were running out, constructed, a reservoir which drained the water which had been supplying some smaller authorities, and they cut off that supply and left us in the villages without any water at all. I suggest to this House that that cannot be allowed to go on, for after all, all the citizens of this country especially with regard to that commodity, which is necessary for life, should have a fair share of what is going. Again may I suggest that larger authorities go very much further a field than it is necessary for them to go to get a supply of water, because it is cheaper in the long run than a nearer supply, and some of the local authorities who are on the borders of that supply have to go without water. These things need the earnest attention of any Government.
I agree with the criticisms which have been made with regard to the legal help (if I may put it so for the moment) given to us in Committees upstairs. It is too ponderous, too heavy, and too costly. Many times in my own experience my mind and the minds of my colleagues—whom I praise for the great work they are doing in those two Committee rooms Nos. 8 and 9—have been made up after we have heard the evidence called by the local authority; but those people have paid very high fees to brief great barristers to plead their case, and we have had to sit and listen to one, two, three or four barristers from the various sides before we have been allowed to come to a decision, whereas
we might just as well have decided it before. Of course they had to address us because the local authorities had to pay them, and they expected so much from those men.
Then I come to expert witnesses. I dread them. Very often the expert has to be coached by the town clerk or clerk of the county council or even the clerk to the rural district council. Why cannot those men themselves place their case before us in Committee? Those men who have been working for the Council and who know more about it than any barrister can know, know exactly where the shoe pinches. Why should not those people be the people to place before us their case? If they did, many thousands of pounds would be saved to local authorities. The work is growing, and as the population grows and as the desire and need grow for newer forms of enterprise to bring happiness to the people, we shall have Bill after Bill in another form and another shape before us in Committee.
It was said by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health that they very often followed legislation enacted by the Local Legislation Committee. I want to see that Committee continued, because I believe that the men who are selected for it have been selected not because they are Members for this, that or the other Division, but because they had spent a lifetime as local administrators, had done their work well, and know exactly what ought to be done as between one locality and another. I would that the Government would give some consideration to this question. It is necessary; it is essential.
Much has been said about the Department. I want to praise the Department. Very often the Department steps in between experts on either side; very often it steps in between great barristers on either side, and guide the Committee to ' a right conclusion, as against the advice of other barristers. Last year a Bill which had been promoted by a town council seeking an extension of the town boundaries came before the Local Legislation Committee. Had it not been for the staff of the Ministry of Health, who examined the whole case and suggested what ought to have been done, the Bill, instead of occupying two days upstairs,
would have lasted for two weeks., on account of the opposition there would have been. Costs can be reduced and time shortened, and Members, who have spent so many days in those Committees, given a little more leisure, and at the same time, if we have the right men to assist us to come to a decision, the work will be infinitely better done. I urge the Government to take this matter into their consideration.

Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT: I intervene to give my general support to this Motion, but particularly to correct some misunderstanding which seemed to prevail on the benches behind me. It would be unfortunate if this House were to call for an inquiry into matters over which it has no control, and I desire to remind hon. Members of some simple facts which they ought to bear in mind. In the main, local authorities promote legislation either to seek additional powers or to extend their boundaries; and, of course, there are cases, such as that which was mentioned with such feeling by the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. B. Richardson), where local authorities seek additional powers in connection with their water supply. In each of the two general classes of cases I have mentioned, the rights of other people are affected. Starting from that point, may I remind some of my hon. Friends behind me of some simple considerations? Where a person's rights are affected, he is entitled to be heard. Not only is he entitled to be heard, he is entitled to be represented. Is it suggested in any quarter of the House that a person or an authority whose rights are affected is to be prevented from being heard or, if heard, is to be prevented from being represented? If those two simple facts are accepted, as in my respectful submission to the House they must be accepted, a large part of the complaints which have been levelled against the system upstairs disappears.
If a man is entitled to be heard and represented, the expense of being represented is his concern and not that of this House. If any Member on these benches had to be beard in a court of justice, or even upstairs, and desired to be represented, this House has no power to regulate the costs in that proceeding. Therefore, some of the complaints raised
to-night are not complaints which could be remedied by this House. As to the expenses I have just mentioned, which are within the power of the authorities themselves, I think there is a legitimate grievance. However, I do not enter upon that now, but I make this general observation, speaking as one who began his association with local government exactly 36 years ago and has been connected with the Bar for nearly 30 years.
I say without any hesitation, and I say it with all due respect, that, when the history of this time comes to be written, one of the most amazing features of it will be the exaggerated importance placed upon the services of particular counsel. I ant old enough to remember the days at the Bar of England when really great men were content to practise upstairs and elsewhere for reasonable fees—not a tithe of the fees now being exacted by men whose work and standing have no comparison with theirs. I do not want to disturb any susceptibilities on the benches opposite, but I make that general observation which applies to the matter before us. While I say that, quite clearly that is a matter which rests, not upon this House, but upon the local authorities who engage these services, and any inquiry which this House might set up, as called for by this Motion, could not bring these matters within its cognisance, because they are outside the cognisance of the House. Therefore I would, if I may, beg my hon. Friends here, who undoubtedly have some prejudice against the profession to which I happen to belong, not to carry that prejudice over two matters which are really not connected with the subject before us.

Mr. RICHARDSON: The trouble is that there are too many there.

Mr. KNIGHT: My hon. Friend has obliged me by emphasising the very point that I am presenting to the House. The fact, assuming it to be a fact, that there are too many there is not within the competence of this House, but is due to the officials and corporations who engage these men, and, therefore, it could not be the subject of inquiry by this House. There is, however, a branch of this matter which could be inquired into by this House—[Interruption.] I do not want to detain the House by
putting before it matters which are beyond the range of this Debate, but I would say that there are certain practices of the Bar which ought to be reviewed. I have pressed for that for many years outside, but that again is not a matter Which is within the competence of this House. There are, however, matters into which this House might I think inquire. I do not gather that any hon. Member has impugned the impartiality of the work of the Committees upstairs. It is not alleged that their work is not conducted in the highest possible way, but there may be a question, and I think an inquiry might be instituted into it, as to whether the expenses to which petitioners are put in coming before Committees upstairs might not be reduced, and whether the charges imposed by this House on petitioners approaching its Committees could not be reconsidered. The general scheme of expenses to which local authorities and other petitioners are put might be considered at such an inquiry as is called for, and for that reason I support the proposal for an inquiry. I think that there are matters which might properly be inquired into, but I would beg the House not to imagine that this inquiry can open or go into matters which are not within the purview of the House.

Mr. SIMMONS: I have been a member of a Parliamentary sub-committee that had the framing and drafting of a Bill, and I was struck with the enormous amount of expense to which it was put in order to get the Bill on to the Statute Book. I was, therefore, glad to see this Motion on the Order Paper. There have been from the opposite side of the House attacks made upon local authorities. I regard the work of our local authorities as not less important than the work of this House. We are charged with being responsible ourselves for the high costs that are involved in engaging legal advice. We have to face the fact that we are the trustees of the rights of the people whom we represent, and we have to see that those rights are safeguarded to the utmost. There is a comprehensive Bill now being discussed upstairs safeguarding the rights and interests of people who live in slum property against estate agents, landlords and property owners associations, which engage the very highest possible legal assistance. We should be betraying the interests of
the people we represent if we did not engage equally competent assistance to combat the case they put forward. I think the procedure ought to be so simplified that the aid of the legal profession would be entirely unnecessary. After all, who knows these matters better than those who are engaged day by day and week by week in the conduct of the affairs of a local authority? It is suggested that discussions in this House and in Committee are necessary in order to safeguard certain interests and in order that points should not be overlooked.
Do hon. Members realise the safeguards that are already provided? Do they realise that before a general powers Bill is finally brought to the House, its Clauses have first of all to be discussed by the Committee responsible, where it undergoes a very close examination; eventually the Bill is drafted by the general purposes committee and is discussed by them and by a special meeting of the borough council, and then it has to go before a town's meeting to receive the approval of the citizens? Every precaution is taken before a Bill even enters this House to see that the interests of the citizens in whose name the promoters are moving are looked after. I object to the delay which this enormous cost imposes upon very necessary local legislation. It has been pointed out that it is a very common practice for these local government Bills to be of a comprehensive nature covering periods of three, four or five years. It means that very necessary reforms in local government have to wait that period of time in order to be embodied in a comprehensive Bill because it would be too costly to bring them separately.
Do members of this House realise what this means to people living in rat-infested disease-ridden slum property in the central areas in some of our large industrial towns and when actions designed to protect these people have to be delayed for a period of time entirely on a question of cost. We were told from the other side that it was necessary to have all this procedure and legal advice and argument to safeguard the people's rights. Surely we can leave to our local authorities the task of safeguarding the rights and in-
terests of their own citizens. If that is so—and I think it ought to be generally accepted that a local authority would safeguard those interests—there is no reason for the present cumbersome procedure to be continued.
Another question which was raised in respect of this matter was the question of party. I think that the question of public ownership was mentioned on the other side. We have to realise that in the advanced local authority which I represent, namely, Birmingham, which is recognised as the Mecca of municipal socialism and which is a pioneer as far as these things are concerned, it was the party represented by hon. Gentlemen sitting on the opposite benches above the Gangway who took the lead in the public ownership of many of our great services in that great city. It is not a party question at all. It is a question of doing the best in the interests of the city you represent. I think that if this House fully realised the difficulties which those of us who serve on local authorities are under at the present time and realised the growing civic consciousness amongst the people, especially in large industrial areas, and the increasing interest taken in local government matters, it would do something towards increasing that interest by making the procedure more simple for getting these Bills presented to Parliament.
I hope an inquiry will be set up and that steps Will be taken to make it possible for matters affecting local government legislation to be brought to this House in the simplest possible manner and presented without all these legal obligations having to be incurred, and for the servants of the community who serve, either as members of local authorities, or who are employed as the servants of local authorities, to have the first and last word as far as these Bills are concerned when they appear in the Committee room upstairs.

The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS (Mr. Robert Young): I only rise to make one or two comments on the discussion which has occupied the attention of the House to-night, and in doing so I would like to tender my meed of praise to those who are responsible for the Committee work in connection with private Bill legislation upstairs. They are very conscientious people and do the work to
the best of their ability. There can be no criticism as to the way in which they do their work. I would point out that the Motion does not seek to take away from this House any of the work that is now placed within its purview. The Motion is for the purpose of amending the Standing Orders relating to Private Business, in order to facilitate and expedite the procedure and to cheapen the cost. On these two points I would say a few words. From the discussion to-night one might think that the very heavy cost attached to this kind of legislation places the House of Commons in the position, as it were, of an institution seeking to make profit. That is not so. So far as the House of Commons is concerned the fees charged are averaged out just to meet the expense imposed upon the House by the private business and nothing further. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Sir D. Newton) referred to an increase in the fees charged by the House, and I think he said that they had been increased by 33⅓ per cent. a few years ago. That is not correct. There was no general increase in fees but a number of small increases were made. The total increase as a result was something between £800 and £1,000 per annum, and that was in dealing with the very large amounts of money' to raise which powers were sought.
In so far as general legislation is concerned, alterations in the Standing Orders cannot affect that. Reference has been made to the fact that towns meetings have to be held. That does not come within the purview of this Motion. That is part of the law of the land. They have to hold their town's meetings and come to their decision in their own way. We have been led to believe that the expenses imposed by this House are very great. I have taken the trouble to get out some examples, which will show that so far as the expenses are heavy they certainly do not arise out of the House fees. If local authorities in promoting Private Bill legislation cannot agree amongst themselves as to what should be done, and they enter into competition for experts and highly paid counsel, nothing under the Standing Orders will prevent them doing so. It is unfortunate that they should compete for counsel and very highly skilled experts, but nothing in
the Standing Orders can prevent them doing that. I do not think there is anything to prevent a town clerk from taking the place of counsel at these Committees. Certainly, they are not prevented in the Standing Orders from doing so. I presume that town clerks—I am not at all belittling the town clerks of our great cities and towns—think that they have a better chance of getting their Bill through if they employ counsel. Therefore, the municipality becomes responsible for the fees of counsel.
I said that I had procured one or two instances so that hon. Members may clearly understand that so far as the fees imposed by this House are concerned they are not high. Here are the particulars of a Bill which occupied 42 pages of print at as deposited and 52 pages by the time that it received the Royal Assent. It was petitioned against in both Houses but became unopposed by the time that it reached a committee of both Houses. It was a local legislation Bill, and was before the Committee on two days. The costs were £1,540. The fees of the House of Lords were £150, and of the House of Commons £100. Advertising in the London Gazette cost £ll. There were very heavy costs in relation to the printing of the Bill and other documents, amounting to £545 13s. 8d. Then there were counsel's fees, two of them, £217, 1s. 9d., shorthand writer's charges, £17 14s., other disbursements £18 11s. 4d. and agent's charges £480 3s. 2d. If a Committee is to decide between one corporation and another they will have to employ agents, and these fees will be payable. But all I am concerned with is to show that as far as the Houses of Parliament are concerned the fees imposed are not heavy. Let me give the case of an opposed Bill. It was before the Lords Committee on five days, and before the Local Legislation Committee on five days. The costs were £3,581 18s. 1d. House of Lords fees, £197; House of Commons fee, £191; printing, £988 13s. 11d.; Counsel's fees, £1,177 1s.; shorthand writer's charges, £101 11s. 1d.; and agents charges, £857 10s. 4d. That proves conclusively that so far as the House of Commons is concerned the fees are not high and are not of a character which some hon. Members have led the House to believe.

Mr. A. BEVAN: Will the Chairman of Committees tell me whether there is any special reason why a local authority should be called upon to pay fees at all?

Mr. YOUNG: As I have already indicated, these fees are put on in order to meet the expense imposed upon the House of Commons in dealing with these Bills. It is not for me to pass an opinion as to whether they should be paid or not. But they are not the heavy sums which some hon. Members have indicated.

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: The hon. Member made a statement just now that he did not know of anything in the way of the town clerk of an urban authority which is promoting a Bill conducting the case in the Committee upstairs. Is that correct? I understand that the rules of the Bar will not allow anyone below the status of a barrister or a King's Counsel.

Mr. YOUNG: At the moment I am not concerned with the rules of the Bar but I am concerned with the Standing Orders of this House, which are under consideration. They do not preclude a town clerk from performing that duty. The words, as far as I remember them are, "either themselves their counsel or their agents." Regarding the other point which has been raised, I am sure that everyone, including the Members of the Local Legislation Committee, would be glad to shorten the proceedings but no suggestion has been made as to how it is to be done. References have been made to the dates prescribed in Standing Orders, but in the circumstances operating at the moment I think that those dates are necessary. At present these Bills start in October and November and there are reasons against starting earlier. I suppose that those responsible for these Bills like ourselves want to have September and August for holidays, but, apart from that consideration, there is this great difficulty. Most of the municipal elections take place in November and if an earlier date were fixed for starting Bills one might find a municipality putting forward a Bill; then after the municipal election the composition of that body might be altered, and the new body might want to withdraw the Bill and in-
troduce a new one, or else amend the old Bill. That would not be decreasing but increasing expenditure. The Standing Orders have been utilised in so far as this House is concerned to expedite the procedure. It is true that if there were an inquiry some slight speeding up might be found possible, and some way might be found out of the difficulty of these heavy costs for which, as I have already said, the House is not responsible.

Mr. MAXTON: The hon. Gentleman has mentioned a case in which there were Parliamentary charges of £250 for a Bill which took two days. What justification can there be for that?

Mr. YOUNG: These charges are all laid down in the Standing Orders themselves and I would point out that £250 is a mere bagatelle compared with the total amount.

Mr. MAXTON: The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned printing, which is surely an item within the control of this House. He mentioned a printing bill of £900. Do the Standing Orders lay down the extent of the printing or kind of printing to be done?

Mr. YOUNG: I do not think that those who are presenting Bills receive any instructions as to the kind of paper which they are to use in the printing or matters of that kind. The House of Commons is not responsible for that, and these Bills have to be printed in any circumstances. I think the Mover mentioned that the Standing Orders had not been considered since 1902.

Mr. BEVAN: No, my statement was not that no inquiry had been held in respect of private legislation since 1902. I did mention that in 1916 the Reconstruction Committee had made a report upon private legislation, and, in 1922, the Chairman of Ways and Means Committee made a recommendation.

Mr. YOUNG: I beg the hon. Member's pardon if I misunderstood him. The question of simplifying the procedure and the reduction of expense has been constantly engaging the attention of the officers of the House. The Standing Orders were carefully considered as recently as 1922 and a number of changes were made in the direction of cheapening costs and expediting procedure. I rose only to draw attention to these two points
raised in this Motion, namely that the House itself is not responsible for any huge expenditure and also that there are certain substantial reasons why these dates are in the Standing Orders.

Mr. T. LEWIS: I should not have intervened in this Debate but for the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary and the speech of the Member for South Nottingham (Mr. Knight). The Chairman of Ways and Means seems to be very satisfied with things as they are and seems to think they are not so bad. I understood this was a Labour party Motion to expedite things, but the reply seems to be that it cannot be done at present. The stumbling block to-day is the same one that has existed for years, namely, the legal and professional interests. They are responsible for the machinery which was set up, and it rather seems to roe that the Ministry would be rather afraid of tackling such important interests as those. It is all very well for the Chairman of Ways and Means to tell us that the House of Commons is not responsible for costly barristers. The hon. Member for South Nottingham knows what happens. I have been acquainted with borough councils for 28 years and we have promoted quite a number of Bills. Only last year for a small bridge it cost us thousands and thousands of pounds in the Parliamentary and arbitration proceedings. There were some very costly professional men and not only counsel. They seemed to work together. The professional interests back up the legal interests, and the legal interests back up the professional interests. I do not blame the hon. Member for South Nottingham for taking a hand in it.

Mr. KNIGHT: The hon. Member has entirely misunderstood my point. I rather agree with him.

Mr. LEWIS: The hon. Member agrees up to a point, but he certainly put in some defence for his profession, which he thought had been attacked. I thought we should have had a little more help from the Parliamentary Secretary. It is true you cannot discuss this question without going a little wider than the Motion before the House. The procedure is carried out, no doubt, according to the book, but we want a new book. In our innocence those of us who have not
been here very long thought we were supporting Bills which our friends on the Front Bench really wanted. We all make these mistakes, I know. We have our respective local bodies and sometimes we have things turned down because the cost of obtaining them would be too great. We always find the reactionary people putting up that argument. We want the assistance of the party to make things easier, and we shall not do it unless the party is prepared to fight the professional interests who exact the last farthing. It is all very well to say you need not have these costly' counsel, but has the Chairman of Ways and Means ever known a town clerk who dared do other than suggest the ordinary course of having counsel at least of the standing of counsel on the opposite side? Then you have all this rigmarole in the legal profession that the junior must have two-thirds. Then they say, "The other side is having so and so as expert witnesses, and we must have at least one equal," and whereas, in the ordinary course of business, you could get a man to give evidence for £25 who would be just as qualified, you find that you have to have a man to whom you must pay, say, £250 in fees.
I suggest that the Ministry must devise new ways and means and simplify the process. There are certain things which ought to come to Parliament, such as water works and questions as to infringing other people's rights, but there is a host of other things that borough and county councils want to do and the Ministry ought to bring in a. Bill to define the things which those councils ought to be able to do by virtue of their own desire, things that can be done in a simple fashion. I do not agree with one hon. Member that the Provisional Order is costly. I think it is the cheapest thing in the long run. The Ministry should bring in a Bill defining these things, and setting forth that a barrister should have a certain fee for certain work. They will fight tooth and nail against it, but I say that these things should be simplified, and I expected more sympathy from the Ministry in this respect. I urge the Department to take this matter seriously, and though I do not expect to have it in the next 12 months, I expect them to bring in such a Measure within the next two or three years.

Mr. STRAUSS: I want to put a point which has not been fully put up to now. It is a matter which particularly affects a big municipality like the London County Council. Let us take the position which that Council may be in if the Charing Cross Bill is presented to this House. It may happen that, after the Second Reading has been agreed to, possibly, by all sides, and the Bill has been before a Committee and fully discussed, it may be delayed by the objection of a single Member when it comes to the Report stage, and it is, I understand, quite conceivable that it might be delayed for as long as two months. It might go so far in a Money Bill which the County Council puts before the House as to delay it to such an extent, through pressure of Government business.

Mr. A. BEVAN: On a point of Order. In the course of this Debate there has been no opposition to the Motion, and would it not be in the circumstances a proper thing that the House should express an opinion upon the Motion? May I therefore ask leave to move, "That the Question he now put"?

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think there is any opposition to coming to a decision in this matter.

Mr. STRAUSS: I was saying that—

Mr. BEVAN: rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, and agreed to.

Resolved,
That, in the opinion of this House, inquiry should be instituted into the desirability of so amending the Standing Orders relating to Private Business as to facilitate and shorten the proceedings on legislation promoted by local authorities and to lessen the heavy costs now incurred.

ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) ACTS.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1928, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban districts of Crewkerne and Ilminster, and parts of the rural districts of Chard and Yeovil, in the county of Somerset, and part of the rural district of Beaminster, in the county of Dorset, which was presented on the 11th day of July, 1929, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1928, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the borough of Honiton, the urban district of Ottery St. Mary, and parts of the rural districts of Axminster, Honiton and St. Thomas, in the county of Devon, which was presented on the 11th day of July, 1929, be approved."—[Mr. Hayes.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Hayes.]

Adjourned accordingly at Two Minutes after Eleven o'clock.